Bengal on Sunday reported 3,427 Covid-19 infections, including 521 from Calcutta.

In 24 hours till 9am on Sunday, the state also logged 9,750 recoveries and 33 deaths, resulting in a drop in the total of active cases by 6,356 to 31,562.

This was two consecutive weeks — 14 days — of such a drop in the third wave, resulting in improvement by over 80 per cent in the total since January 17. Prior to this turnaround, the total active caseload had gone up by nearly 22 times from 7,457 on December 28 last year to 1.6 lakh on January 16.

The recovery rate also improved for two consecutive weeks to reach 97.38 per cent, from 97.06 on Saturday. The national rate is 94.21.

Between December 29 and January 16, it had dropped by nearly eight percentage points, before recovering by over seven percentage points in these two weeks.

“Two more weeks of this, and we will have fully undone the damage of the third wave. The turnaround arrived earlier than estimates and has remained unwavering,” said a minister.

Ten of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths on Sunday. Calcutta reported eight. The mortality rate is 1.03 per cent now.

The positive confirmation rate was 6 per cent on Sunday. On January 10, the positive confirmation rate had reached an all-time high of 37.32.

Deemed a crucial indicator in the pandemic, the current level of the positive confirmation rate means one out of every 17 samples in the state is testing positive.

On January 10, it was two out of every five. In a pandemic, a positive confirmation rate up to 5 per cent is considered tolerable.

Sunday was the 33rd day since the escalation of the third wave in Bengal, evident from the Covid-19 figures since December 29 last year.

In these 33 days, the state logged around 3.62 lakh infections (including 2 lakh in Calcutta). The state also recorded 3.37 lakh recoveries and 850 deaths.

However, since January 17, the state reported 95,907 infections, compared to over 2.24 lakh recoveries.

Bengal has over 19.93 lakh cases now since the first was detected in the state in March, 2020. The total includes more than 19.41 lakh recoveries and 20,583 deaths