West Bengal on Sunday reported an all-time high of 24,287 fresh cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, the highest since the first wave of infections in 2020. The infections detected in the last 24 hours were 5,485 more than yesterday’s, taking the tally to 17,55,046, the health department said.
The city accounted for more than a third of Bengal’s Covid infections for the day with a tally of 8,712 cases, compared to 7,337 cases on Saturday. While neighbouring North 24 Parganas with several of Kolkata’s satellite towns including Salt Lake and its infotech and commercial hub accounting for 5,053 cases against the previous day’s 3,286 cases. Other districts reporting large number of infections during the day included the industrial districts of Howrah (1,742) and Hooghly (1,276), near Kolkata.
According to a projection of the spread of the virus modelled by a team from the Indian Institute Science and Indian Statistical Institute, the peak for West Bengal will be reached by mid to late January depending on the susceptibility rate and should start declining after that. State government officials felt that with restrictions being strictly imposed they would be able to control the rapid rise of the contagion soon. The positivity rate further rose to 33.89 per cent from Saturday’s 29.60 per cent, the bulletin said. There were 18 Covid-19 related deaths registered here which pushed the toll to 19,901, it added.
While North 24 Parganas district reported 6 deaths, the city registered 5 and two each in South 24 Parganas and Howrah. One death each was reported in Hooghly, Purba Medinipur and Dakshin Dinajpur district. Since Saturday, 8,213 recoveries were reported in Bengal, though the discharge rate further slipped to 94.42 per cent. So far, 16,57,034 people have recovered from the disease in West Bengal.
In the last 24 hours, 71,664 samples have been tested in Bengal taking the total number of such clinical examinations to 2,18,74,205, the bulletin stated. Meanwhile, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar was on Sunday admitted to a private hospital after he tested positive for the disease, hospital sources said. “He has mild fever, cough and cold. His oxygen saturation is stable. He tested positive for the Covid via RAT test and is now in isolation cabin. His sample has been sent for RTPCR test,” an official of the hospital said.
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