Bengal saw a drop in the number of active Covid-19 cases for the second time as the patients’ count fell from 5,693 on Saturday to 5,552 on Sunday, which was aided by 518 discharges, the highest 24-hour figure of recoveries.

With the 518 releases, the number of cured cases went past the 5,000 mark and the recovery rate reached 45.63 per cent.

The state had seen a drop in the number of active cases only once before, that was on May 12 when the figure came down by 11 in 24 hours to 1,363.

“The total active cases is now higher than the total cured cases (5,060) by only 492. Given the rate at which we have been moving, total cured patients is expected to go past the active cases in a matter of days, taking the recovery rate beyond the 50 per cent mark,” said a Bengal minister.

The recovery rate was 40.34 a week ago and 33.69 a month ago.

“The biggest contributors to the cured cases overnight were North 24-Parganas with 282 and Cooch Behar with 141,” said the minister. A month ago, Bengal had a total of 829 recovered cases.

While there were 518 discharges on Sunday, the state reported 389 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours till 9am. The total cases stood at 11,087.

Most of the cases — around 97 per cent — were reported from districts experiencing a high volume of returns of migrant workers and others stranded elsewhere in the country during the initial stages of the lockdown. Calcutta alone reported 158 on Sunday.

The toll from Covid-19 in Bengal reached 475 with a dozen deaths from the pathogen being recorded on Sunday. The state government reported 329 of the deceased people — 69.3 per cent — as deaths with co-morbidity “present”. Calcutta reported the most deaths, at 293.

As of Sunday, there were 94,529 lakh people at 10,318 quarantine centres earmarked for migrants who returned by Shramik Special trains. At 582 other state-run quarantine centres, 14,259 people were lodged. The number of people in home quarantine are 1.57 lakh .

“It is good news for us that 3.48 lakh people, including nearly 1.47 lakh returnees, have already completed quarantine successfully,” said the minister.

With 9,026 Covid-19 tests in 24 hours, the total tests touched 3,33,733, or 3,708 tests per million. A month ago, the state was conducting around 6,700 tests daily, with a total of around 70,000, or 773 tests per million.

The positive confirmation rate — the percentage of people found infected among those tested — improved from 3.54 a month ago to 3.32 per cent. A decreasing positive confirmation rate is indicative of lower levels of Covid-19 spread.