Bengal on Tuesday reported 10,430 Covid-19 cases, including 2,205 from Calcutta.
In 24 hours till 9am on Tuesday, the state also logged 13,308 recoveries and 34 deaths, resulting in a drop in the total of active cases by 2,912 to 1,55,711. This was the second consecutive day of such a drop in the third wave. Before Monday, the last drop in the total of active cases was registered on December 27 last year.
Even with 53,824 tests on Tuesday — over 18,000 more than Monday — the positive confirmation rate improved significantly to 19.38 per cent from 26.43 per cent on the previous day. On January 10, it had reached an all-time high at 37.32.
Thirteen of the state’s 23 districts recorded zero deaths on Tuesday. Calcutta reported 10 fatalities and North 24-Parganas seven.
Deemed a crucial indicator in the pandemic, the positive confirmation rate — the percentage of samples testing positive for the novel coronavirus — basically halved in eight days from the level of nearly two out of every five samples testing positive in Bengal to one out of five. In a pandemic, a positive confirmation rate up to 5 per cent is considered tolerable.
The state’s mortality rate is 1.05 per cent now, with that of infected males at 1.23 and of infected females, 0.81.
At the peak of the devastating second wave last year, the rate had climbed to 33 per cent.
On December 28 — the last day of relatively normal numbers before the latest spell of the surge in Bengal — the statewide total was 752, which included 382 from Calcutta. The total active caseload was 7,457 then.
In the three weeks since, the state has logged around 2.85 lakh new infections, including 98,632 from Calcutta.
The recovery rate, for the second consecutive day, also improved to 90.83 per cent from 90.63 on Monday. Prior to this, it had dropped by nearly eight percentage points after December 28. The national rate is 94.09 now.
Bengal has over 19.17 lakh cases now, since the first was detected in the state in March, 2020. The total includes over 17.41 lakh recoveries and 20,155 deaths.
