Bengal on Thursday went past 20 lakh tests with a record 45,291 tests in 24 hours, taking the state past 500 tests per million people in a day.
Bengal logged 3,335 recoveries in 24 hours till 9am on Thursday, much more than the 2,984 new infections in the same span. The toll, however, rose by 55, and 15 of those deaths occurred in Calcutta.
With this, total number of cases in Bengal is 1.71 lakh, of which recoveries are over 1.44 lakh and deaths 3,394.
Bengal’s recovery rate is 84.02 now, much ahead of the national rate of 77.21 per cent.
Having begun testing in early February, it took Bengal six months to get to 10 lakh tests on August 5, and from there, crossing 20 lakh took 29 days, the latest lakh in two days.
The tests per million is now 22,453, which was 10,630 even a month ago. “This is a tremendous achievement. Till August 5, we had 10.03 lakh tests. Today, we have nearly 20.21 lakh. Our daily testing is past 45,000,” said a minister. “The World Health Organisation’s advisory specifies a daily minimum of 140 tests per million. A month ago, Bengal was at 245. Today, it is at 503.”
With more testing, and relatively fewer new cases found over the past 11 days, positive confirmation rate improved from 8.9 to 8.5 per cent.
For the 11th consecutive day, the state reported a fall in total active cases, with more recoveries than new cases. The total active cases on August 23 was 28,069, and on Thursday it was 24,039.
The five most high-incidence districts of Bengal — Calcutta, North and South 24-Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly — collectively recorded a fall, this time of 372, in their total of active cases. From 7,041 active cases of August 9, Calcutta improved to 4,178 on Thursday.
Of the total deaths, 2,938 (86.6 per cent) were reported comorbid by the state government. The overall mortality rate stayed at 1.97, while the national rate is 1.74 per cent.
Bengal reported 32.36 per cent occupancy of 12,275 Covid-19 beds in 90 hospitals.
Telemedicine services have been provided to over 1.62 lakh, 4,257 of them in the past 24 hours.
