The Mamata Banerjee government said on Sunday evening that Bengal had recorded 41 new Covid-19 cases and two deaths in the past 24 hours.

The new figures released by the state government in a bulletin showed that Bengal had conducted 1,939 tests, taking the total number to 22,915. The number of tests per million people doubled from 126 on Wednesday to 254 on Sunday.

On Thursday, when the last news conference was conducted by the government to speak on Covid-19 statistics, Bengal had 572 active patients and the number of cured persons was 139. As of Thursday, the number of deaths was 105, of which 33 were directly from the pathogen.

Since then, according to the bulletins issued by the health department, there have been 168 new confirmed cases, while 60 Covid-19 positive persons — none in the past 24 hours — were released following cure. Bengal now has 6,953 people in home isolation and 4,930 in institutional isolation.

The number of Covid-19 deaths in the state went up by 17 since Thursday.

Not only has there been no news conference for three consecutive days, the format of the bulletin was changed, without details such as the total of active cases or deaths.

Sources in the government attributed the change in the approach to a difference in the number of Covid-19 cases in the state given by chief secretary Rajiva Sinha and health secretary Vivek Kumar. In a letter to Union health secretary Preeti Sudan, Kumar listed a total of 931 Covid-19 positive cases as of Thursday.

On the same day, the chief secretary said the state had a total of 572 active Covid-19 cases, with 139 cured patients and 105 dead, including 33 directly from the pathogen.

“Even if one adds up all the numbers given by Sinha, they come to 816. Kumar’s total is higher by 115…. The Opposition went to town with it,” said a source in the government.

“Our relatively careless effort in combating the slander regarding our alleged data-fudging has, despite so much good work in the pandemic war, resulted in considerable damage in popular perception,” he added.

“The information and cultural affairs department had indicated on Friday that a clarification would be issued, but that was never done. On top of that, in a knee-jerk reaction, there was no news meet for three days in a row. The bulletins issued after Thursday are in a new format, which conceals more than it reveals.”