Bengal on Saturday reported 18,802 Covid-19 cases which included 7,337 (39.02 per cent) from Calcutta.

Although the statewide total is only slightly higher than that of Friday’s 18,213 and the city’s overall count is a bit lower than the 7,484 infections reported a day ago, Bengal had 63,518 tests conducted in 24 hours till 9am on Saturday, compared to 69,158 the day before.

However, the positive confirmation rate rose to 29.6 per cent on Saturday, from 26.34 on Friday. That basically means one out of every three tests in the state returns positive. A positive confirmation rate of up to 5 per cent is considered tolerable in a pandemic. At the peak of the second wave last year, it had climbed to 33 per cent.

The recovery rate slid further to 95.27 from 95.84 per cent on Friday. The national rate is 97.3 now.

On Saturday, there were also 8,112 recoveries and 19 deaths reported, resulting in a rise by 10,671 in the total of active cases to 61,780, the highest since June 3, 219 days ago. Sixteen of the state’s 23 districts reported zero deaths. Calcutta logged seven fatalities.

Even on December 28 — the last day of relatively normal numbers before the latest spell of surge in Bengal — the statewide total was 752, including 382 from Calcutta. The total active caseload then was 7,457.

Since then, the state has logged 98,942 new infections, including 44,296 from Calcutta. There have also been 44,194 recoveries and 150 deaths in the state in these 11 days, including 20,526 recoveries and 46 deaths from the city.

The surge was, at least initially, mostly confined to the city and its surrounding areas. The root cause was identified by sources in the state government as the general disregard for Covid-19 safety protocols among revellers in Calcutta and surrounding areas the run-up to Christmas.

“However, it is clearly part of a much larger, pan-India spell of surge. A nationwide wave in such a pandemic is not an isolated phenomenon, that could stay confined to Bengal or Greater Calcutta…. Irrespective of the initial triggers, we would have reached this stage, sooner or later,” said a minister.

Calcutta and its immediate neighbourhood of North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia accounted for 14,377 — 76.47 per cent — of the new infections on Saturday.

The state’s mortality rate is 1.15, while that of the nation is 1.32 per cent. Bengal now has nearly 17.31 lakh Covid-19 cases since the first was logged in March 2020.

The total does include close to 16.49 lakh recoveries and 19,883 deaths.