Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the Covid-19 pandemic in India had reached community transmission stage — which the Narendra Modi government has been denying — on a day Bengal reported 3,340 new cases, the highest spike in 24 hours till 9am, and 62 deaths.
Mamata, at the end of her march to protest against the Hathras atrocity, said before the Gandhi statue on Mayo Road: “This is now in the community spread (transmission) stage…. So many precautions, such a lot of protection, still not all of it can be stopped.”
Community transmission is a dreaded stage where the source of infection is tough to trace.
Mamata then drew from her own household’s example.
“I have been going to office and attending meetings daily, for eight months through the pandemic...we are so exposed,” she said. “You will be surprised to know this. There are two-three of us in my household. The boy who gives me tea when I get home, he too got infected yesterday…. In my office there, another boy who works there… answers phones. He tested positive today. What does it mean? Community spread. These people do not venture out. Still they are infected,” she added. An emotional Mamata also recalled her three party MLAs, healthcare and police personnel, and journalists who died of Covid.
Of the 62 deaths in Bengal, 13 were from Calcutta and 19 from North 24-Parganas.
Bengal also reported 3,013 recoveries on Saturday.
Bengal’s total number of Covid cases stands just short of 2.67 lakh, including nearly 2.35 lakh recoveries and 5,132 deaths. As of Saturday, the state government reported 85 per cent deaths as comorbid.
Bengal’s recovery rate is 87.92 now, still ahead of the national rate of 84.05 per cent. The state’s mortality rate remained at 1.92, behind the national rate of 1.55 per cent.
Mamata recalled her party colleagues who died of Covid. “We have been on the streets, working for the people. We have already lost three of our MLAs (Egra MLA Samaresh Das, Falta MLA Tamonash Ghosh and Indas MLA Gurupada Mete) to the pathogen. So many of our leaders have died,” she said.
She added her party’s Burdwan East MP Sunil Mondal, who was supposed to join the delegation to Hathras on Friday, went on self-isolation in the morning after his son tested positive.
