The Bengal government on Friday reported 6,706 Covid-19 tests in the past 24 hours, breaching the 6,000-tests-a-day mark — which was not expected in the first week of May.

The government had not expected to cross the 6,000 mark before next week, a minister said.

At the end of April, 1,900 tests were done a day and the rise of three times was recorded in less than three weeks. The state will soon conduct over 7,000 tests per day.

Bengal on Friday — in 24 hours, till 9am — reported 61 new releases of Covid-19 patients following cure. The total cured cases now stands at 829.

There were 84 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection in the state, taking the total active cases to 1,407. Bengal also reported 10 more deaths directly from the pathogen on Friday, taking the toll to 153.

In the first 15 days of the current month, the state’s total test count has risen by over 53,000 to reach 69,543 tests. The tests per million people now stands at 773, a rise of over four times since 183 on April 30.

“We had not expected to cross the 6,000 tests a day mark before next week and the 7,000 tests a day mark before the end of the month. But given the remarkable surge, we might get past the 7,000 mark in a matter of days and past 8,000 in a week,” said a minister.

The recovery rate has risen to 33.69 per cent — one out of every three Covid-19 positive cases.