Bengal on Sunday logged 215 Covid19 cases, including 39 from Calcutta, a three-digit figure in a day for three weeks since infections spiked during the third wave. The state logged 220 recoveries and three deaths, including one from Calcutta. Active cases dropped by eight to 1,944.

The positive confirmation rate the percentage of samples testing positive for the novel coronavirus – is 0.78 per cent now, below 1 per cent for 10 consecutive days, in a first this pandemic.

This was a month in the third wave of the state reporting a positive confirmation rate of less than 5 per cent in a 24hour period. Deemed a crucial indicator in the pandemic, a positive confirmation rate of up to 5 per cent is considered tolerable. On January 10, the positive confirmation rate had reached an alltime high for the state at 37.32.

This was six weeks or 42 consecutive days of such a drop in the third wave, resulting in improvement by 99 per cent in the total since January 17. Prior to this turnaround, the total active caseload had gone up by nearly 22 times between December 28 and January 16, to 1.6 lakh.

The state’s recovery rate is 98.85 per cent, while that of the nation is 98.54 now.

Between December 29 and January 16, it had dropped by eight percentage points, before recovering by over eight percentage points.

In these 42 days, the state reported over 2.73 lakh recoveries, which outweighed the 1.16 lakh new infections detected.

Twenty of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths. The state’s 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 nearly 19.92 lakh recoveries and 21,175 deaths.