Bengal on Saturday logged 293 Covid-19 recoveries, 197 new infections and one death, resulting in a dip in total active cases for the 103rd day on the trot since Vijaya Dashami on October 26 last year.

A minister said this was the first instance after April 2020 of not a single Covid death being reported from Calcutta in the 24-hour window.

“From a daily toll of 50-plus barely two months ago, including 20-plus in Calcutta, it is now lowered to less than five daily, with just one or two from the city. But Saturday’s figure of just one, with none from Calcutta, is quite an achievement,” said the minister.

The state’s total active cases, which were 37,190 on Dashami, now number 4,895.

Bengal’s recovery rate has risen for 106 consecutive days to touch 97.36 per cent now. The national figure is 97.19.

The state’s positive confirmation rate is 7.03 per cent, having fallen steadily for 78 days. On Saturday, the state reported 24,011 tests, taking the total past 81.28 lakh, at 90,315 tests per million people.

Of the total Covid-19 toll of 10,202, the state attributed 8,569 deaths (84 per cent) to comorbidities. Bengal’s mortality rate stayed at 1.78, while the national rate remained 1.43 per cent. “With the drastic fall in deaths, mortality rate would have come down sharply, but it hasn’t happened as the daily number of infections has nosedived...We aren’t complaining as both are huge positives,” he added.