Bengal on Monday reported 9,385 Covid-19 cases, including 1,879 from Calcutta.

The state-wide tally of four digits is the first in the third wave after January 4. During the 24-hour period till 9am on Monday, the state also logged 11,034 recoveries and 33 deaths, resulting in a drop in the total of active cases by 1,682, to 1,58,623. This was the first instance of a drop in the third wave. The last drop in the total of active cases was registered on December 27 last year.

Although the infection count was considerably less than that of Sunday (total 14,938 in Bengal and 3,893 in Calcutta), the state logged only 35,515 tests on Monday. The test count was over 18,000 less than the figure on Sunday, nearly 30,000 less than Saturday and more than 37,000 less than Friday.

Twelve of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths. Calcutta logged seven fatalities and North 24-Parganas 11.

The positive confirmation rate — the percentage of samples testing positive for the novel coronavirus — improved slightly over these three days, to 26.43 per cent on Monday (27.73 on Sunday, 29.52 on Saturday, and 31.14 on Friday). But it still means more than one out of every four tests in the state is returning positive, much higher than the 5 per cent ceiling deemed tolerable in a pandemic.

At the peak of the devastating second wave last year, the rate had climbed to 33 per cent. 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 20 days since, the state has logged around 2.75 lakh new infections, including 96,427 from Calcutta.

The recovery rate, for the first time in these 20 days, rose. It reached 90.63 per cent on Monday from 90.49 on Sunday. Prior to this, it had dropped by nearly eight percentage points after December 28. The national rate is 94.27 now.

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 19.07 lakh cases now, since the first was detected in the state in March, 2020. The total includes over 17.28 lakh recoveries and 20,121 deaths.