Bengal on Thursday reported 139 new Covid-19 infections, including 20 from Calcutta.

The state also logged 158 recoveries and zero deaths, resulting in a drop in active cases by 19 to 1,776 in all.

This was the 46th consecutive day of such a drop in the third wave, resulting in improvement by 99 per cent in active cases since January 17. The total active caseload had gone up by nearly 22 times between December 28 and January 16, to 1.6 lakh.

The positive confirmation rate or the percentage of samples testing positive was 0.54 per cent on Thursday. This rate has been below 1 per cent for 14 consecutive days in a first this pandemic. On January 10, it had reached an all-time high for the state at 37.32 per cent.

The state’s Covid recovery rate is 98.86 per cent now. Its Covid mortality rate is 1.05 per cent.

Bengal has over 20.15 lakh cases now, since the first was detected in the state in March 2020. The total includes more than 19.92 lakh recoveries and 21,178 deaths.