Bengal on Thursday reported 23,467 Covid-19 cases, including 6,768 from Calcutta.

With 8,139 recoveries and 26 deaths, the total of active cases rose by 15,302 to reach 1,31,553 on Thursday.

The count of total active cases is the highest since May 22 last year (236 days ago) during the second wave.

After two days of slight improvement, the positive confirmation rate was 32.13 per cent again on Thursday. The Centre has been voicing concern over Bengal’s positive confirmation rate — the percentage of samples testing positive for the novel coronavirus — as it currently means one out of every three tests in the state is returning positive.

A positive confirmation rate up to 5 per cent is considered tolerable in a pandemic. At the peak of the devastating second wave last year, the rate had climbed to 33 per cent.

“We are in the peak stage of the third wave, as part of a nationwide phenomenon. The numbers are not very likely to worsen exponentially… we are probably not going to see 40,000 or 50,000 new infections in a day,” said a source in the state government, asserting that the omicron variant, although more infectious, is far less virulent.

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 16 days since, the state has logged 2.08 lakh new infections, including 78,957 from Calcutta.

The surge was initially confined to the city and its immediate neighbourhood. The trigger then was identified by sources in the state government as the general disregard for Covid-19 safety protocols among revellers in Calcutta and the surrounding areas in the run-up to Christmas. However, it has become increasingly clear since that it was part of a much larger, nationwide wave and not an isolated regional spike.

According to internal assessments, around 80 per cent of all new infections in Bengal over the past couple of weeks are of the omicron variant. But of them, more than 90 per cent turned out to be asymptomatic. “Even among the symptomatic, only a minuscule percentage is critical. There has been very little need for hospitalisation this time,” said the source.

“Before this escalated (on December 28), 1.24 per cent of the state’s (23,947) Covid-19 hospital beds were occupied. Today (Thursday), that rose to only 6.38 per cent, by only five times. The active caseload, in the same period, has increased by nearly 18 times,” he added.

“Even with worse numbers compared to the second wave, we are hopeful of emerging with far less damage from the third.”

The recovery rate slid further on Thursday to 91.77 per cent from 92.51 on Wednesday. The rate dropped by nearly seven percentage points in these 16 days. The national rate is 95.59 now.

Thirteen of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths on Thursday. Calcutta reported six. The state’s mortality rate is 1.09 now, while that of the nation is 1.3 per cent.

Bengal now has over 18.41 lakh Covid-19 cases since the first was logged in March 2020. The total does include more than 16.89 lakh recoveries and 19,985 deaths.