Mumbai, Sep 22 (IANS): Covid-19 infections in Maharashtra cooled off with a drop in fatalities, new cases and recoveries, though the state conducted a record 1,05,026 tests for the day, Health Minister Rajesh Tope said here.

The state recorded 18,390 new cases - lower than the highest tally of 24,886 (Sep. 11) - which pushed the state total from 12,24,380 to 12,42,770 cases till date.

Adding 392 more fatalities - down from the peak of 515 (Sep. 15) - the state death toll increased from 33,015 to 33,407 now.

For the fifth consecutive day, the state recovery rate jumped - from 74.84 per cent to 75.36 per cent - while the current mortality (death) rate stood at 2.69 per cent on Tuesday.

Against this, a high of 20,206 fully recovered patients returned home - higher than the number of fresh cases added during the day - taking up the total of discharged patients from 916,348 to 936,554 till date - much higher than the 272,410 'active cases' (ill) currently in the state.

As per the figures on Tuesday, there was one death roughly every 3.67 minutes and 766 new cases added every hour to the state tally.

Of the 392 deaths, Pune led the state with 62 fatalities, there were 50 in Mumbai, 39 in Thane, 21 each in Raigad, Kolhapur and Nagpur, 18 in Sangli, 17 in Jalgaon, 16 in Ahmednagar, 14 each in Solapur, Satara and Nanded and 10 in Palghar - in the higher bracket.

There were 9 fatalities each in Nashik, Latur and Amravati, 8 in Osmanabad, 7 in Ratnagiri, 5 each in Aurangabad and Bhandara, 4 each in Parbhani and Beed, 3 in Gadchiroli, 2 each in Buldhana, Washim and Chandrapur, 1 each in Nandurbar, Jalna, Hingoli, besides 3 from other states/foreigners - in the lower bracket.

With complaints of shortage of essential Covid-19 treatment drugs from several parts of the state, FDA Minister Rajendra Shingne announced that sufficient stocks will be procured soon.

"We have discussed with the drug companies and we shall get over One Lakh Remdesivir vials in the next five days which will take care of the situation," Shingne said.

Hovering around the 50s range for the third day, Mumbai recorded 50 deaths - and the toll increased from 8,505 to 8,555 while the number of corona cases shot up by 1,628, and jumped from 186,276 to 187,904 now.

Of the total eight Circles, the situation in Mumbai circle (MMR - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad) remains on the edge as deaths spiral and cases pile up, with the fatalities shooting up by 120 - from 14,836 a day earlier to 14,956 and with another spike of 3,874 new infectees, the total cases shot up from 439,180 the previous day to 443,054 now.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home-quarantine for Corona again increased - from 18,58,924 to 18,70,200 now - while the number of those in institutional quarantine went down from 35,517 to 34,982 on Tuesday.A