Bengal Covid-19 toll 20; tests rise ..... Over the past seven days, the state conducted 5,848 tests

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee spreads awareness during the nationwide lockdown in Calcutta on Friday.(PTI)

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, 27.04.20, Calcutta:  The Bengal government on Sunday put the number of active Covid-19 patients at 461 with 38 new positive cases and two more deaths.

The death toll from the disease has reached 20 with the two fatalities. On Saturday, the number of active patients was 423.

The Mamata Banerjee government constituted a committee of experts to audit deaths at Covid hospitals.

The number of patients recovered from the disease stood unaltered at 105.

In the 30-day period between March 18 — when the first Covid-19 case was reported in Bengal — and April 16, there were a total of 144 active cases. In the 10 days since, 373 new cases have been reported.

Over the past couple of weeks, over 80 per cent of the new cases have been reported from densely populated areas in and around Calcutta.

“Irrespective of the decision on the lockdown over the next few days, the containment areas in the high-prevalence zones, such as Calcutta, Howrah and North 24-Parganas, have to be kept restricted and closely monitored. Otherwise, there could be a quantum leap in the weeks after May 3,” said a Bengal minister.

For the first time since Bengal started testing, it managed to conduct over a thousand tests in a day with 1,013 on Sunday. The total tests conducted so far has reached 10,893. The state has 13 laboratories for novel coronavirus tests.

Over the past seven days, the state conducted 5,848 tests.

“We are looking at considerably higher testing figures over the next couple of weeks, as Command Hospital, the CNCI, R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital and Suraksha Diagnostic start will conduct more tests,” said a source in the government.

“There will be a major capacity augmentation if the Centre approves the labs we have sought sanctions for at the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital, Burdwan Medical College and Hospital and Bankura Medical College and Hospital,” he added.

Bengal currently has 5,364 people in the 582 state-run quarantine centres, following the release of 12,369. There are 21,288 people in home quarantine at present, following the release of 39,774.