Mumbai, May 14 (TIWN) Maharashtra saw Covid-19 fatalities and new infections drop sharply on Friday, but the state tally crossed the 53 lakh mark and the toll raced past the 79,000 level, health officials said.

Compared with 850 deaths on Thursday, the state fatalities fell to 695, taking the toll to 79,552, while the number of new infections remained below the 50,000-level, dropping to 39,923, with the state tally rising to 53,09,215 now.  The Mumbai situation continues to improve, with infections remaining below the 3,000-level, and further dropping to 1,660 - and the city tally increased to 684,845, while deaths went down to 62 now, taking the total fatalities in the country's commercial capital to 14,102.  For the second day, the state death rate remained stable at 1.05 per cent, while the number of active cases dropped from 533,294 to 519,254.