Bengal on Sunday recorded a fall in the total number of active Covid-19 patients for seven consecutive days, riding on more recoveries than new cases.
Amid a three-week spell of improvements in the battle against the novel coronavirus, the recovery rate rose to nearly 82 per cent.
With 3,308 patients being cured of the disease on Sunday, nearly 1.31 lakh recoveries formed the lion’s share of the 1.6 lakh total cases. The state logged 3,019 new cases and 50 deaths during a 24-hour period till 9am on Sunday.
The three-week spell of what is being viewed as a turnaround began on August 9 when the recovery rate was 70.24. On Sunday, it was 81.96 per cent. The national recovery rate now is 76.69.
“On August 9, we were not even in the top 10 states, in terms of recovery rate. Today (Sunday), we are fourth among the states, after Delhi (88.9), Bihar (86.9) and Tamil Nadu (85.6),” said a Bengal minister.
In the past seven days, the state logged 20,915 new cases, outweighed by 22,945 recoveries.
“On August 9, our total active cases were 26,375, which slowly rose to 28,069 by August 23. With the remarkable seven-day fall, the total active cases were 25,657 today (Sunday),” said the minister.
On Sunday, yet again, the five most high-incidence districts of Bengal – Calcutta, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly – collectively recorded a fall of 143 in their total of active cases.
“Calcutta, the most high-incidence district, had 7,041 active cases on August 9. Today (reporting 472 recoveries and 428 new cases), it is at 4,969,” said the minister.
In another positive aspect, the state reported a new 24-hour high in testing, with 43,436, taking the total past 18.45 lakh, at 20,504 tests per million people. Because of the turnaround, the positive confirmation rate fell from 8.9 per cent a week ago to 8.66 per cent on Sunday.
Of the 50 deaths reported on Sunday, 19 were from Calcutta. Of the 3,176 in total, 2,762 (87 per cent) were reported as comorbid by the government.
The overall mortality rate dipped further to 1.98, while the national rate is 1.78 per cent.
Bengal reported 32.69 per cent occupancy on 12,045 Covid-19 beds at 87 hospitals, besides 14.88 per cent on 11,507 beds at 200 safe homes.
Telemedicine services have been provided to over 1.45 lakh, 4,181 of them in the past 24 hours.