Covid-19 cases up, public health experts urge caution

The city is gearing up for Durga Puja but the Covid graph is slowly rising again.

Public health experts said the slight increase in daily Covid cases in West Bengal does not mean there is any cause for panic, but it is also a reminder that the virus is still around.

The daily Covid numbers crossed 300 again on Wednesday, after around a month. The number was 139 on September 19, according to the state health department. It jumped to 296 on September 20 and the next day, the count of daily new cases went up to 365.

On Thursday, West Bengal recorded 337 new cases.

On September 5, the count of new cases had come down to 89.

“The severity of the pandemic as well as the scare are over for now. These are undulations in the overall graph that indicates the virus is still around and we cannot completely drop our guard during shopping and pandal hopping,” said Abhijit Chowdhury, a public health expert who helms chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Covid task force.

At several hospitals in Kolkata, there were no Covid patients admitted for many days. But for the last three or four days, the hospitals said they were admitting at least one Covid patient daily.

Peerless Hospital did not have a single Covid patient about four days back. On Thursday, it had four Covid patients.

“We had zero Covid patients for more than 10 days but since the beginning of the week, we have been admitting at least one Covid patient every day. None of them is critical,” said Sudipta Mitra,chief executive of Peerless Hospital. “One of the Covid patients is also suffering from dengue.”

The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences had no Covid patient admitted for five days at a stretch. On Thursday, the hospital had four patients.

“We had planned to shut down the eight-bed Covid ward if the trend of zero patients continued for a couple of weeks. But we had to change the plan and have decided to keep it functional for now,” said R. Venkatesh, COO, east and south, Narayana Health, which runs the RN Tagore hospital.

Venkatesh said the positivity rate of samples tested at the hospital, which was zero for several days, has gone up. Three or four of the 25-odd samples being tested every day are turning out positive.

Belle Vue Clinic had only two Covid patients admitted on September 1. On Thursday, the number was four, said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue.

The AMRI Hospitals group, too, is seeing a slight increase in Covid admissions. The three units of the chain— in Dhakuria, Mukundapurand Salt Lake — had seven patients on September 15. On Thursday, the three had nine patients, said an official of the group.