Bengal on Thursday achieved its goal of taking its Covid-19 recovery rate past 93 within November, riding the 31-day wave of a steady drop in total active cases since Vijaya Dashami on October 26.

Bengal’s total active cases fell from 37,190 on Dashami to 24,670 on Thursday, almost back to the level of September 19, 68 days ago. With this, Bengal has managed to drop out of the list of top five states with the most active cases.

“Our key goals at the start of this month were to get the total active cases to less than 25,000 and the recovery rate to over 93 per cent by November 30. We achieved the first on Tuesday and the second today (Thursday),” said a minister.

“We have finally been able to fall out of the top five in the list of states with the most active cases. On Tuesday, we were fifth. Today, we have managed to come down to the eighth place. Soon, we will get out of the top 10,” he added.

In the 31 days since the end of Durga Puja, the state recorded over 1.27 lakh recoveries, outweighing the 1.16 lakh cases found.

On Thursday, the state reported 3,537 recoveries, 3,507 new infections and 52 deaths.

The state’s recovery rate has been on an unbroken spell of rise for 35 consecutive days, reaching 93.01 per cent on Thursday, inching closer to the national rate of 93.64 per cent.

Bengal’s total of Covid-19 cases is over 4.7 lakh now, including over 4.37 lakh recoveries and 8,224 deaths.

Calcutta High Court had intervened to prevent a worsening of the pandemic over Durga Puja. The numbers of infections from Puja showed that the intervention was effective. The high court issued a similar set of instructions for Kali Puja, Diwali and Chhath.

The minister said it could now be assumed that the state has seen off the Kali Puja-Diwali spell of festivities without considerable worsening of the outbreak.

“Thursday was Day 10 for someone who got infected on November 17, the day after Bhai Phonta. These statistics we are getting now from the Kali Puja-Diwali weekend and later indicate that Durga Puja’s discipline was maintained,” said the minister. It is between Day Six and 10 of the infection that most cases get detected.

With 44,713 tests on Thursday, the state’s total test count went past 56.99 lakh, at 63,325 tests per million people. The positive confirmation rate is 8.26 per cent.

Of the 52 deaths reported on Thursday, 12 each were from Calcutta and North 24-Parganas. The total toll has 6,877 or 83.6 per cent comorbid deaths.The state’s mortality rate is now 1.74, compared to the national 1.45 per cent.