The Mamata Banerjee government on Sunday reported 153 new Covid-19 cases, 14 deaths directly from the pathogen and discharge of 45 patients following cure in the past 24 hours.
The total number of active Covid-19 patients in the state is 1,337 now.
The 14 deaths — the highest in a 24-hour span — took the toll directly from the infection to 113. The previous highest number of fatalities over the 24-hour period was 11 as reported on Saturday.
There were the death of 72 other Covid-19 patients attributed to comorbidities by the state till April 30. Of the total 185 deaths, 126 were from Calcutta, 25 from North 24-Parganas and 22 from Howrah.
The figures, according to the health department bulletin, were updated till 9am on Sunday.
The 153 news cases was also the highest intra-day spike. The previous highest was Friday’s 130. The total Covid-19 positive cases in Bengal reached 1,939, of which 948 are from Calcutta, 417 from Howrah and 251 from North 24-Parganas.
With a total of 417 cured cases, the recovery rate in the state rose to 21.51 per cent, from 18 per cent on April 30.
“These so-called records of 24-hour spikes in the number of cases could keep getting broken for some time. There is nothing extraordinarily worrisome in that at this stage of the pandemic for the state…. Calcutta and adjoining areas need special attention, which they are getting,” said a minister.
“What matters is that the recovery rate has been steadily increasing, the positive confirmation rate has been steadily decreasing and the testing numbers have been hitting newer highs daily,” he added.
The positive confirmation rate — the percentage of positive cases out of samples tested — fell to 4.47 per cent from 4.6 per cent on April 30.
The state finally breached the single-day test figure of 4,000 and conducted 4,046 tests. A total of 43,414 tests have been conducted in Bengal.
The number of tests per million people now stands at 482, from 183 on April 30.
Of the 18 Centre-approved laboratories, the three leading the testing stats are NICED, with 7,239 tests, North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, with 6,652 tests, and SSKM, with 6,050 tests.
“We’re looking to go past the 5,000 tests a day mark in a week or so,” said the minister.
Bengal now has 5,921 persons in the 582 state-run quarantine centres, besides 18,458 people on home quarantine.
The state’s healthcare workers have so far received from the state government 6.94 lakh personal protective equipment kits, 3.5 lakh N95 masks, 23.95 lakh regular masks, 1.305 lakh litres of hand sanitiser and 13.5 lakh gloves.
