Tests zoom past 7000; hint of lower spread ....Over the past 24 hours, till 9am on Saturday, Bengal reported 115 new cases of coronavirus and 7 deaths

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, 17.05.20,  Calcutta: The Bengal government on Saturday reported “considerably improved” Covid-19 testing stats, with 7,745 tests conducted in the past 24 hours that lifted the rate to 859 per million population.

The number of tests is almost twice the 3,601 tests recorded a week ago on May 9. Over this period, the state’s total test count has nearly doubled from 39,368 to 77,288. The rate is an improvement from 437 per million population a week ago.

Over the past 24 hours, till 9am on Saturday, Bengal reported 115 new cases of the novel coronavirus and seven deaths.

The positive confirmation rate — the percentage of people found infected among those tested — has come down over seven days from 4.54 per cent to 3.33 per cent.

“Here is good news…. Nationally, the positive confirmation rate is around 4 right now…. Bengal, at 3.33, is doing very good, better than the national average today,” said home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay. A decreasing positive confirmation rate is indicative of lower levels of Covid-19 spread.

In the first six days of this week, the state conducted 33,874 tests at the 22 Centre-approved laboratories, four of which received the nod over the week.

North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri — which got central approval on March 29 — leads with 11,127 tests, with NICED in Calcutta almost catching up with 11,119 tests.

“Such ramp-up has been possible mainly because of multiple shifts at the labs, which our government had been striving for since the beginning. Each lab has a capacity of 100-150 tests per shift, so when you are able to conduct two or three shifts, the numbers rise exponentially,” said a minister.

The total number of active cases in Bengal is 1,452, 667 of which are in Calcutta. A week ago, the total active cases had been 1,243.

Over the past 24 hours, 63 patients have been discharged from hospital. The total number of cured persons is 892 — 444 from Calcutta, 159 from Howrah and 129 from North 24-Parganas.

The recovery rate has risen to 34.63 per cent from 20.83 a week ago. “The national average is 35.09 per cent. Which means by way of recovery rate we are virtually on a par with the national rate,” said Bandyopadhyay.

The total death count now stands at 160, which does not include 72 other Covid-19-related deaths attributed by the government to co-morbidities.

Of the total 232 deaths of infected persons, 154 were from Calcutta, besides 32 each from Howrah and North 24-Parganas.

The state now has 9,667 people in the 582 state-run quarantine centres and another 50,258 in home quarantine.

“The home quarantine numbers have risen by 36,000-odd in a week. This is entirely from the return of the migrant workers and others stranded outside Bengal. These numbers will keep rising, at least till the end of June,” said the minister.

Bengal has distributed to its hospitals 8.48 lakh personal protective equipment sets, 3.8 lakh N95 or FFP2 masks, 26.2 lakh regular masks, 1.35 lakh litres of hand sanitiser and 15.6 lakh gloves.

Industry nod

The government has received 20,158 applications from industries and enterprises for resumption of operations so far and approved 8,930 and rejected 10,184.