Bengal on Friday reported a drop in its total active Covid-19 cases for the 46th consecutive day since Vijaya Dashami on October 26, with 2,873 recoveries, 2,753 new infections and 50 deaths, 13 from Calcutta.

Since Dashami, active cases have fallen from 37,190 to 23,281. The state also reported less than 3,000 new cases for the fifth consecutive day.

Bengal, however, stayed third among states with the most active cases after Maharashtra and Kerala. Bengal has over 6 per cent of the national total of active cases.

The state now has over 5.16 lakh Covid-19 cases, including 4.84 lakh recoveries and 8,966 deaths. Of the total toll, 7,514, or 83.8 per cent, were attributed to comorbidities.

In the 46 days since Dashami, the state recorded over 1.74 lakh recoveries, outweighing the 1.62 lakh cases detected.

The state’s recovery rate rose for 50 consecutive days from 87.44 on October 22 to 93.76 per cent now. The national rate now is 94.85 per cent. The mortality rate is 1.73, still behind the national rate of 1.45 per cent.

Calcutta High Court’s intervention to prevent crowding to keep a leash on the pandemic over Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Diwali and Chhath seem to have worked. “We are trying our best to ensure there’s no new spike from the Christmas-New Year spell of festivals,” said the minister.

With 42,131 tests on Friday, the state’s total test count went past 63.4 lakh, at 70,446 tests per million people.

The positive confirmation rate – the percentage of infections found in relation to the number of tests conducted -- is 8.15 now, having improved fairly steadily from the 8.27 of November 20.

Bengal reported 22.71 per cent occupancy in the 13,588 beds earmarked for Covid-19 in the 102 dedicated hospitals for the pandemic, besides over 5.23 lakh telemedicine consultations so far this pandemic.