The Bengal government on Thursday reported 87 fresh Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, eight deaths directly from the pathogen and the hospital discharge of 66 persons that lifted the recovery rate to 32.31 per cent.

The state now has a total of 768 discharged persons — 629 of them released this month — till 9am on Thursday.

The recovery rate has risen by over 14 per cent in two weeks since April 30. Of those cured, 368 are from Calcutta, 135 from Howrah and 102 from North 24-Parganas.

Bengal conducted 5,205 tests on Thursday — over 5,000 tests a day for the third consecutive day — taking the total to 62,807 tests. Of these, 46,000 tests have been conducted in the past couple of weeks.

The test rate per million people is 698 now, nearly four times the 183 recorded two weeks ago.

North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri leads with a total of 9,872 tests, followed by NICED in Calcutta, with 9,350 tests.