Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday expressed concern about the Covid-19 situation in North 24-Parganas and the “very high” positivity rate there.
Mamata warned officials at a televised meeting that parts of the district were densely populated and asked them to take adequate measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19. She also asked elected representatives from the district to be more vigilant.
The positivity rate — percentage of tests turning out to be positive — gives a measure of the spread of a disease in the community, public health specialists said.
“The positivity rate is 20.6 per cent in the district. Why is the situation in North 24-Parganas still not under control? There are some urban areas and some rural areas in the district. A lot of dengue cases are also reported from the district every year,” Mamata said during an administrative review meeting held through videoconferencing and attended by officials of a number of south Bengal districts.
“Are the zilla parishad chief, the MLAs taking care of their areas? The municipalities should be careful. I will tell the urban (development and municipal affairs) department to be especially careful. This (North 24-Parganas) is a very densely populated district. There are too many people living within a small area. You have to ensure that the positivity rate goes down,” she said, addressing officials from the district.
The state health department’s bulletin on Covid-19 states that 700 cases were reported from the district on Monday and 696 on Sunday. The district reported the highest number of new cases in the state on both these days.
“For a few days now, North 24-Parganas is reporting more cases than Calcutta,” said a health department official. The district was reporting between 500 and 600 cases every day about a fortnight back.
Officials later said densely populated pockets such as Dum Dum, Barasat, Barrackpore and the areas off VIP Road were a concern. Sources in the district’s health administration said all these places had been reporting a high number of Covid-19 cases.
The chief minister went on to add that the discharge rate among Covid patients and the death rate in the district were 77.2 and 2.2 per cent, respectively.
She also cited the positivity rates of some districts that were lower compared with that of North 24-Parganas. Mamata said the positivity rates in Howrah, Hooghly and South 24-Parganas were 13.7, 8.3 and 7.9 per cent, respectively.
“A high positivity rate means the right people, those with symptoms, are being tested. It leads to faster isolation of infected people,” said a public health specialist.