Bengal on Monday reported 89 new Covid-19 infections, including 14 from Calcutta, a two-digit figure in a 24-hour period for the first time since May 15, 2020.

Both these numbers are fewer than those of Sunday (statewide total 215, 39 in Calcutta). However, the state only reported 17,694 tests in 24 hours till 9am on Monday, compared to 27,411 till 9am on Sunday.

Positive confirmation rate or the percentage of samples testing positive went down to 0.5 per cent on Monday, lower than Sunday’s 0.78 of Sunday. It meant only one out of every 200 tests returned positive.

The state also logged 204 recoveries and only one death from South 24-Parganas, resulting in a drop in the total of active cases by 116 to 1,828.

Bengal’s recovery rate rose to 98.86 per cent, while that of the nation is 98.56 now.

This was 43 consecutive days of a drop in active cases in the third wave, resulting in improvement by 99 per cent in the total since January 17. Prior to this turnaround, the total active caseload had gone up by nearly 22 times between December 28 and January 16, to 1.6 lakh.

Between December 29 and January 16, it had dropped by eight percentage points, before recovering by over eight percentage points.

In these 43 days, the state reported nearly 2.75 lakh recoveries, which outweighed the 1.17 lakh new infections detected.

Twenty-two of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths. The state’s mortality rate is 1.05 per cent. Bengal has over 20.15 lakh cases now, since the first was detected in the state in March, 2020. The total includes more than 19.92 lakh recoveries and 21,176 deaths.