The chief minister on Wednesday said her own immediate neighbourhood in Calcutta had reported many Covid-19 cases recently as Bengal reported 340 more novel coronavirus patients in the past 24 hours.

“So many have asked me why I was still getting out of my home because there have been so many Covid-19 cases in my immediate neighbourhood (Harish Chatterjee Street). What can I do?” Mamata Banerjee asked on Wednesday.

According to sources in the Trinamul Congress, dozens of Covid-19 cases have been reported from the Harish Chatterjee Street area over the past few days.

“Mine is a very poor neighbourhood. There are many people who work as porters at shops. There are many who work as domestic helps…. You will see that people at villages have been following rules much better. Those of us used to urban life, not so,” the chief minister said.

Mamata had on Friday confirmed that fire and emergency services minister

Sujit Bose had tested positive for the novel coronavirus and said her own neighbourhood was becoming a high-incidence zone.

With 340 new Covid-19 cases being reported on Wednesday, Bengal’s total number of patients touched 6,508. The total count was 4,192 a week ago and 1,259 a month ago.

Of the 340 new cases — reported till 9am on Wednesday — 324 (over 95 per cent) were from districts experiencing a huge influx of migrant workers.

“Lakhs and lakhs of migrant workers are returning… a high incidence of cases. That’s alright, they are all our own people. They are being forced by the railways to return in crammed trains over days from (high incidence states of) Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu,” Mamata said on Wednesday.

There were 18,525 people at quarantine centres and another 1,48,287 in home quarantine as of Wednesday. The quarantine centres had 4,964 people on May 8 — just before the arrival of the migrants started. The number of people in home quarantine then was 9,576.

“That’s why we are getting more and more tests done so that all are found. So that we can get them cured,” said the chief minister.

The state on Wednesday reported 2,580 tests per million people, which was 1,850 a week ago and 279 a month ago. Bengal had 9,499 tests conducted in 24 hours — the highest intra-day count — at 41 Centre-approved laboratories. The total number of tests is 2,32,225 now.

Bengal also recorded the discharge of 170 more cured Covid-19 patients, taking the number of recoveries to 2,580. The recovery rate improved to 39.64 per cent from 37.64 a week ago and 17.32 a month ago.

However, with the surge in the new cases, the positive confirmation rate — the percentage of people found infected among those tested — deteriorated from 2.52 a week ago to 2.8 per cent. An increasing positive confirmation rate is indicative of higher levels of Covid-19 spread.

The number of deaths directly from the pathogen touched 273 with 10 more people succumbing to the disease in the past 24 hours.