A group of 12 friends from Calcutta had gone on a leisure trip in end-March. A few of them developed symptoms of Covid-19 and about three days back, all 12 tested positive.

A group of five from a family — the members are of ages four to 55 and they live in different houses — had gone to a star hotel for lunch last week. One of them developed symptoms of Covid and subsequently all tested positive.

The virulence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid, is way more than what the country had witnessed last year, doctors said following reports that members of a group or a family are getting infected at the same time in increasing numbers.

Also, younger people are being infected in larger numbers than in the first phase of the epidemic last year, the doctors said.

Public health experts and doctors also blamed a general sense of false safety and carelessness among a large section of the population, active social life in the absence of a lockdown and tendency to travel for the rapid spread of the disease.

“I am getting at least three to four Covid patients every day. All are family members. Last year, too, at the height of the epidemic, multiple members of a family were being infected but rarely did we find every member testing positive,” said physician Amitabha Saha.

Doctors said one reason why so many people in close groups were getting affected could be that new strains of the coronavirus were more virulent than the previous ones. However, violation of safety protocols by a large section of the population is also to be blamed.

“Earlier, there was panic among people, which is now mostly missing. There is a perception that Covid is gone. Also, many people are having a false sense of security and are not following safety protocols after taking the first dose of a vaccine. That is the reason why so many people are testing positive after taking the first dose,” said Sauren Panja, the head of critical care and internal medicine at the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences.

“The perception that Covid is gone is also the reason why people with symptoms are going for the test late. Earlier, many people did not want to be tested because of the fear of being stigmatised.”

Panja cited another reason for the fast spread of the virus - increase in travelling within the city and outside and lack of restrictions on socialising in the absence of a lockdown.

Hospitals providing home healthcare facilities said they were seeing people in groups getting infected.

An agency that provides home healthcare said six students of a management institute in Calcutta had tested positive for Covid in the last week of March. All of them stayed at the institute’s hostel.

“Within a couple of days, nine more students in the same hostel tested positive. All 15 are being monitored through video conferencing by our doctors,” said an official of the agency.

Apollo Home Healthcare has around 100 Covid patients in Calcutta who are undergoing treatment at home.

“We have seen this time that in many cases more than three members of a family are getting affected at the same time. Last year, even during the peak of the epidemic, we had seen mostly two to three people in a family getting infected,” said Souvik Bhattacharya, the unit head of Apollo Home Healthcare.

“Also, around 50 per cent of those undergoing treatment at the moment under our supervision, are between 25 and 40. Last year, we had barely 10 per cent of this age group as patients.”

Case count

The number of active Covid cases in Bengal rose by 1,329, to 12,775, on Tuesday. The state recorded 2,058 new infections and 772 recoveries during the day.