Bengal on Friday reported 767 new Covid-19 infections, including 131 from Calcutta.

In 24 hours till 9am on Friday, the state logged 1,361 recoveries and 27 deaths, resulting in a drop in the total of active cases by 621 to 14,184. This was 26 consecutive days of such a drop in the third wave, resulting in improvement by over 91 per cent in the total since January 17. Prior to this, the total active caseload had gone up by nearly 22 times from the 7,457 of December 28 last year to 1.6 lakh on January 16.

The positive confirmation rate — the percentage of samples testing positive for the novel coronavirus — improved to 1.73 per cent, from the 1.8 of Thursday. This was 11 consecutive days in the third wave of the state reporting a positive confirmation rate of less than 5 per cent in a 24-hour period. In a pandemic, a positive confirmation rate of up to 5 per cent is considered tolerable. On January 10, the positive confirmation rate had reached an all-time high for the state at 37.32.

The state’s recovery rate has improved for 26 consecutive days to reach 98.25 per cent. The national rate is 97.17.

Ten of Bengal’s 23 districts reported zero deaths. Calcutta reported four. The mortality rate is 1.04 per cent.

Bengal has nearly 20.1 lakh cases now, since the first was detected in the state in March, 2020. The total includes over 19.74 lakh recoveries and 20,965 deaths.