Bengal on Sunday reported 14,938 Covid-19 infections — the lowest 24-hour tally in the third wave since January 5 — including 3,893 from Calcutta.

Although both numbers are considerably less than those of Saturday (statewide total 19,064, 4,831 in Calcutta), the state had only 53,876 tests on Sunday, compared to 64,572 on Saturday and 72,725 on Friday.

However, the positive confirmation rate — the percentage of samples testing positive for the novel coronavirus — improved slightly over these two days, to 27.73 per cent on Sunday (29.52 on Saturday, 31.14 on Friday). But it still means more than one out of every four tests returning positive.

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

Till 9am on Sunday, the state also logged 9,973 recoveries and 36 deaths, resulting in a rise by 4,929 in the total of active cases, taking it to 1,60,305.

On December 28 — the last day of relatively normal numbers before the latest spell of surge in Bengal — the statewide total was 752, including 382 from Calcutta, and the total active caseload was 7,457.

In the 19 days since, the state has logged around 2.66 lakh new infections, including 94,548 from Calcutta.

The recovery rate slid further on Sunday to 90.49 per cent, from Saturday’s 90.68, having dropped by nearly eight percentage points in these 19 days. The national rate is 94.51 now.

Eleven of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths. Calcutta reported a dozen, while North 24-Parganas reported five.

The state’s mortality rate is 1.06 per cent now, with that of infected males at 1.24 and of infected females, 0.82.

Bengal has over 18.97 lakh cases now, since the first was detected in the state in March, 2020. The total includes over 17.17 lakh recoveries and 20,088 deaths.