The COVID-19 pandemic continued to take a toll on Maharashtra on Sunday with 89 more deaths and 2,487 new cases, taking total fatalities to 2,286 and cases to 67,655, so far.

The number of active patients was, however, 36,031 with as many as 1,248 patients being discharged on Sunday to take total recoveries in the State to 29,329, Health Department officials said.

“The patient doubling time figure for the State has now increased to 17.5 days from the 11.7 days in the previous week. This is higher than the rest of the country’s averaging doubling time figure of 15.7 days. Maharashtra’s recovery rate stands at 43.35%,” said State Surveillance Officer, Dr. Pradeep Awate.

Total cases in Mumbai inched towards the 40,000 mark with 1,244 new cases. However, little over half of the cases — 20,845 — were active. As many as 52 deaths were reported from the State capital, taking its total fatalities to 1,279. Nine deaths each were reported from Pune district and Navi Mumbai.

Despite an improvement in the recovery rate, Malegaon city in Nashik district — a major virus hotspot in north Maharashtra — reported six deaths to take its death toll to 58. Thane district reported five deaths and Kalyan Dombivli reported four to take their respective death counts to 89 and 25.

“Of the total deaths reported today, 39 had occurred in the last couple of days while the remaining fatalities are from the period between April 27 and May 27. 63% of the deaths reported had high-risk co-morbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma and heart disease,” said Dr. Awate.

He added that the State’s mortality rate stood at 3.37% (higher than the country’s rate of 2.86%).

Besides Mumbai, the surge in fresh cases in Thane in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) continued unabated, with more than 240 new COVID-19 cases taking the district’s total tally to 4,486. Navi Mumbai reported 56 new cases as its total tally reached 2,673.

“Till date, of a total 4,62,176 laboratory samples, 67,655 have been tested positive. There are 78 laboratories — 44 government-run and 34 private — functioning in the State currently. A total 3,585 tests per 10 lakh population are being conducted in Maharashtra which is higher than the national figure of 2,722 tests per 10 lakh population,” Dr. Awate said.

He said currently, 5,58,100 people across the State were in home quarantine and 34,480 were in institutional quarantine facilities. There are 3,157 active containment zones currently, said Dr. Awate.