Covid: 3,677 cases & 64 deaths in Bengal

The recovery rate, which had reached 87.98 on October 6, dropped to 87.79 per cent on Wednesday

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya   |   TT   |   Calcutta   |   15.10.20  :  Bengal logged the highest number of Covid-19 cases at 3,677 on Wednesday, resetting the maximum daily count for the 11th time in 14 days this month.

The state on Wednesday also reported the highest number of Covid patients to die during a 24-hour period till 9am at 64.

The total novel coronavirus cases stand at 3.05 lakh, of which over 2.68 lakh are recoveries and 5,808 deaths. The number of recoveries on Wednesday were 3,096.

The recovery rate, which had reached 87.98 on October 6, dropped to 87.79 per cent on Wednesday. The national rate — once lagging behind the state by nearly 10 per cent — has almost caught up, at 87.1 now.

“October has been the worst month for us so far in terms of the pandemic. We can only hope that it doesn’t get much worse by the end of the month, after Puja. We have been trying our best not to let this spiral out of control, into a full-fledged public health emergency for the state,” said a minister.

In the 14 days of the month, the state reported nearly 49,000 new Covid-19 cases, considerably outweighing the 42,000-odd recoveries. There have also been 850 deaths during the period.

“So much of the progress made, especially in August, was laid to waste over the past few weeks. We had climbed to the top five in the list of states with the highest recovery rate and stayed there for so long. Now, we have fallen to the 18th spot,” said the minister.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has been repeatedly issuing warnings against letting the pandemic’s spread widen, asserting it had reached the dreaded community transmission stage in India, which the Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been in denial of. Also called Stage III, community transmission is a phase of person-to-person spread of the infection, where the source is difficult to trace.

Of the total 5,808 deaths, Calcutta alone accounted for 1,926, with a dozen till 9am. North 24-Parganas reported a total of 1,309 deaths, 14 of them on Wednesday.

The state government reported 4,916 deaths (84.6 per cent) as those with comorbidity “present”.

Bengal’s overall mortality rate is 1.89, substantially behind the national rate of 1.52 per cent.

With 42,549 tests, the total tests went past 38 lakh, to 38.18 lakh, at 42,427 tests per million people.

Having begun testing in early February, the state took over three-and-a-half months to cover one lakh tests. Over the next five months, it covered 37 lakh tests.

The renewed surge in cases has caused the positive confirmation rate to rise again, over the past week or so, to 8.01 per cent now.

The state reported 36.52 per cent occupancy on 12,715 beds earmarked for Covid-19 at 92 dedicated hospitals, besides 3.31 lakh telemedicine consultations.