Active cases cross 5,000 Of the new cases, 335 were from districts experiencing a high volume of returnees; Calcutta alone reported 110

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, 11.06.20, Calcutta: Bengal on Wednesday reported 343 new Covid-19 cases and 17 deaths, but the discharge of 159 cured patients, which took the total number of recoveries to 3,779, provided the silver lining.

The total number of infections was 9,328 till 9am on Wednesday, taking the number of active cases past 5,000.

The total number of infections was 6,508 a week ago, and 2,063 a month back.

With 17 more deaths, the Covid-19 toll is now 432. Of these, the state government reported 288 or 66.7 per cent as deaths with comorbidity “present”. Calcutta has reported the most deaths, 275.

But the recovery rate, now at 40.51 per cent, was only 24.19 a month ago.

Of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours till Wednesday 9am, 335 (over 97 per cent) were from districts experiencing a high volume of returnees. Calcutta alone reported 110.

Migrant workers and others stranded elsewhere in the country during previous stages of the lockdown started returning to the state in lakhs over the past month.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her government have repeatedly attributed the spike in Covid-19 cases to infection in many of the returnees from high-incidence states.

“For instance, of the 995 Covid-19 cases reported in the eight north Bengal districts, well over 95 per cent are returnees. A month ago, three of the eight districts were still green zones, and there were only 34 infections,” said a minister. “Similarly, a month ago, seven south Bengal districts of Murshidabad, Nadia, Birbhum, Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram and East Burdwan were relatively unaffected with 32 cases, and two districts were still green. On Wednesday, the figure stands at reported 907.”

Currently, over 1.26 lakh people who came back by the Shramik Special trains are staying in 11,519 quarantine centres earmarked for them. In the other 582 state-run centres, 20,275 people are in quarantine. Another 1.55 lakh people are in home quarantine.

“There are around 3 lakh currently in quarantine, but another 2.85 lakh, including over a lakh returnees, have successfully completed quarantine,” said the minister.

The state had 9,519 tests conducted in the day to take the total to 2,97,419 and tests per million to 3,305. A month ago, Bengal was conducting around 4,200 tests a day with around 48,000 tests in all, and only 529 tests per million.

The positive confirmation rate or percentage of people found infected among those tested rose from 2.8 a week ago to 3.14 per cent, which means higher levels of Covid-19 spread. But the figure is less than 4.33 per cent a month ago.