Three Covid-19 patients from Bengal tested negative in a second round of tests on Monday, sparking hope that they could be discharged from the infectious diseases hospital in Beleghata on Tuesday, health department officials said.

The three are an 18-year-old student whose father is a doctor and mother a bureaucrat, a 23-year-old resident of Habra and a south Calcutta businessman whose 22-year-old son, too, has tested positive.

All three had tested negative on Sunday, too. Metro erroneously reported on Monday that the businessman and the Habra resident had tested positive on Sunday.

“The three patients tested negative on Sunday and again on Monday. The discharge protocol says a Covid-19 patient can be discharged if results of two repeat tests are negative in 24 hours. Doctors will take a final call,” said an official of the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, which conducted the tests.

An official of the Beleghata hospital said the 18-year-old boy and the 23-year-old woman “would be discharged on Tuesday in all likelihood”. The businessman is still running a temperature, though doctors treating him felt the cause of the fever could be something else, said an official.

“Post-discharge, one can live a normal life,” said a doctor involved in treating Covid-19 patients.