The Bengal government said on Friday that death toll from Covid-19 had reached 88 with nine persons succumbing to the disease in the past 24 hours.

In the same period, 130 new cases were reported and 26 people released after recovery.

The total number of active novel coronavirus positive cases in the state was 1,195 on Friday. With 26 more recoveries, the total number of cured patients rose to 323.

In the first eight days of May, 183 persons were reported cured, lifting the recovery rate to 19.25 per cent from around 18 per cent.

In the past 24 hours, Bengal conducted 3,015 tests and the total number tests till now stood at 35,767. The current test rate is 397 per million people, which is a rise by nearly four times from 109 on April 24.

The positive confirmation rate — the percentage of people found infected among those tested — now stands at 4.69 per cent.

Of the 88 deaths directly from the pathogen, 55 were in Calcutta, 15 in Howrah and 13 in North 24-Parganas. There were 72 other deaths — 52 in Calcutta, five in Howrah and eight in North 24-Parganas — attributed to comorbidities till April 30.

“Outside the three districts of Calcutta, Howrah and North 24-Parganas, the state has been doing increasingly well, evident from the considerably higher testing stats. The three districts are going to be a challenge in case of any contagious disease because of their population density and various socio-economic factors,” said a Bengal minister.

The state has had 1,678 total confirmed cases so far, 846 of them from Calcutta, 362 from Howrah and 232 from North 24-Parganas.

“Nine other districts have reported either zero cases or none since April 2. There are 15 districts where the number of cases, as of Friday, ranged from zero to nine. Only five Covid-19 deaths were reported outside those three districts,” said the minister.

Three persons, including a cancer patient, who had returned from Mumbai and were tested positive for Covid-19 in Birbhum on April 30, were released from a West Burdwan hospital on Friday evening.

The state has currently 17 laboratories approved by the Centre for testing novel coronavirus. Five more labs are awaiting approval.

There are 4,964 people at the 582 state-run quarantine centres and another 9,576 people in home quarantine.

Bengal now has a total of 68 dedicated Covid-19 hospitals, with a total of 8,570 beds earmarked, including 907 ICU beds and 392 ventilators. There is currently 14.48 per cent occupancy of the Covid-19 beds.

The state has distributed to its hospitals 6.49 lakh personal protective equipment sets, 3.38 lakh N95 masks, 23.3 lakh regular masks, 1.29 lakh litres of hand sanitiser and 12.85 lakh gloves, besides 20,000 thermal guns.