Bengal on Friday achieved the target of taking its total of Covid-19 cases to below 15,000, with 14,749, back almost to where it was 161 days ago on July 17.

The state on Christmas reported 1,954 recoveries, 1,541 new infections and 31 deaths, including seven from Calcutta, which resulted in the drop in total active cases for 60th consecutive days since Vijaya Dashami on October 26.

“We have achieved even our revised, audaciously optimistic targets for the year end. From wanting to end the year with 23,000 active cases (when the total had been 37,190 on October 26), we are now below 15,000,” said a minister.

The total of active cases fell over the 60-day period by over 22,000, improving by 60.34 per cent.

In these 60 days, the state recorded over 2.1 lakh recoveries, outweighing the 1.9 lakh cases found.

The state now has a total of over 5.44 lakh Covid-19 cases, including the 5.2 lakh recoveries and 9,536 deaths.

The recovery rate rose for 64 consecutive days, from the 87.44 per cent of October 22, to 95.54. The national rate now is 95.77 per cent.

“Our year-end target for the recovery rate was 93, revised later to 95. Having achieved both, we will almost certainly get past the national recovery rate by the year-end,” said the minister.

Bengal’s positive confirmation rate is 7.9 per cent now, having improved fairly steadily from the 8.27 of November 20.

With 40,089 tests on Friday, the state’s total test count rose to 68.96 lakh, at 76,633 tests per million people.

Of the total novel coronavirus toll in Bengal so far, the state government attributed 7,992 deaths or 83.8 per cent to comorbidities.

The state’s mortality rate is now 1.75 per cent, compared to the national rate of 1.44.

Bengal reported 14.32 per cent occupancy in the 13,588 beds earmarked for Covid-19 in the 102 dedicated hospitals for the pandemic, besides over 5.48 lakh telemedicine consultations so far.