Mumbai, May 13 (IANS) Maharashtra Covid-19 fatalities continued to shoot up even as new infections registered a drop while the Mumbai death toll crossed the 14K-mark, health officials said here on Thursday.

Compared with 816 deaths on Wednesday, the state's fatalities again shot up to touch 850 on Thursday - compared with the peak 1,035 deaths (April 28) - pulling up the toll from 78,007 to 78,857 now, the worst in the country.

The number of new infections remained below the 50K-level, and dropped from 46,781 to 42,582, although lower than the record high of 68,631 (April 18), and the state tally catapulted from from 52,26,710 to 52,62,292 now.

The Mumbai situation continues to improve, with the infections remaining below the 3K-level, dropping from 2,104 to 1,952 today - and the city tally increased from 681,233 to 683,185 till date, after touching the highest daily spike of 11,206 cases last month (April 4).

Mumbai's daily deaths went up from 66 on Wednesday to 68 now, and the total fatalities in the country's commercial capital shot past the 14K-mark, from 13,972 to 14,040 now - the highest in the country.

After remaining steady for 11 days the state death rate dropped significantly, improving from 1.49 percent to 1.05 percent, while the number of 'active cases' dropped from 546,129 to 533, 294.

On the brighter side, 54,535 fully cured patients returned home, higher than the number of fresh infections today - taking the total up from 46,00,196 to 46,54,731, while the recovery rate further improved from 88.01 percent to 88.34 percent now.

As the state vaccination drive was marred by shortages, Health Minister Rajesh Tope appealed to the Centre to formulate a policy on vaccine imports by various states to streamline the process, a day after the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation issued global tenders to procure one crore doses from the world markets.

The Mumbai Circle - comprising Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and Raigad districts - recorded a fall in new cases, from 6,818 to 5,953 now - compared with the peak of 19,953 (April 11) infections.

Now, the MMR case-load has shot up from 14,63,629 to 14,69,582, and with 183_ more deaths, the toll shot up from 25,110 to 25,293.

Of the day's 850 total fatalities due to the contagion, Thane led the state with 77 deaths, 68 in Mumbai, 64 in Nagpur, 62 in Beed, 59 in Nashik, 56 in Pune, 38 in Solapur, 34 each in Jalgaon and Ratnagiri, 32 in Satara, 27 in Sangli, 26 in Chandrapur, 25 in Wardha, 23 in Yavatmal, 22 in Osmanabad, 19 each in Palghar, Raigad, Ahmednagar and Gadchiroli, 16 in Nandurbar, 14 in Jalna, 13 in Latur, 11 each in Sindhudurg, Amravati, Buldhana and Washim - in the higher range.

There were 8 deaths in Nanded, 7 each in Kolhapur and Parbhani, 6 in Bhandara, 5 in Aurangabad, 4 in Hingoli, 1 each in Dhule, Akola and Gondia - in the lower range.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home isolation decreased - from 36,13,000 to 35,02,630 now, while those shunted to institutional quarantine went down from 29,417 to 28,847 on Thursday.

--IANS qn/ash