Bengal’s highest test count .....Bengal remained in the bottom five states in terms of the number of tests per million people

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, Calcutta, 1.05.20: The government on Thursday said Bengal had tested 1,905 samples in the 13 functioning Covid-19 laboratories in the past 24 hours, the state’s highest single-day count so far.

The increase in the tests over the past few days boosted Bengal’s rate to 183 tests per million people on Thursday, up from 126 on Monday. A total of 16,525 samples have been tested in the state so far.

Sources in the government, however, said even after the improvement, Bengal remained in the bottom five states in terms of the number of tests per million people.

“Bengal achieved its highest 24-hour test count, with 1,905 tests,” chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said. The testing per million was 126 on Monday, 142 on Tuesday, 161 on Wednesday and 183 on Thursday.

Sinha said the state currently had 16 laboratories approved by the Centre’s Indian Council of Medical Research, with two of them yet to start testing. A third, the CNCI in Rajarhat, is currently non-functional because of a technical glitch.

“In February, we had one (Centre-approved) laboratory for Covid-19 testing in Bengal. In March, we had two, NICED and SSKM. On March 17, the first Covid-19 case was found in the state. On March 27, we had three labs,” the chief secretary said.

A state minister said: “It is not our fault at all. The Centre had to approve many more labs in good time. Others who fared well started with 30-40 Centre-approved labs. We only had two till the end of March,” he said.

Sinha said there had been 37 new Covid-19-positive cases in the past 24 hours, while 15 more had been released following cure.

The number of deaths directly because of Covid-19 rose by 11, from 22 to 33, but Sinha clarified they were deaths examined by the audit committee and did not necessarily take place in the past 24 hours.