509 patients discharged in past 24 hrs
Kolkata: Bengal on Thursday witnessed 649 fresh Covid cases across the state while the number of patients recovered and discharged from hospitals has gone up to 509 in the past 24 hours.
The infection rate has been a concern for the health officials but the way the patients are recovering in the Covid hospitals sends a strong signal. The total number of infections has reached 19,819 across the state till Thursday.
The total number of patients who have recovered from the deadly virus so far stands at 13,037. The recovery rate in the state is satisfactory. The discharge rate of the state has reached 65.78 per cent on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the state Health department on Thursday issued an advisory to the medical superintendents of all Covid hospitals and also to the CEOs of all the private hospitals on case management for COVID-19 patients. The Health department said its expert team visited some private Covid hospitals and found lacunae which are in practice. Such lacunas must be rectified, the Health department said in its order.
The department also made certain recommendations that say the top sheet provided for monitoring must be maintained. Anticoagulation protocol should be followed as per guideline. The private hospitals have also been instructed that before putting the patients in mechanical ventilators, oxygen therapy must be escalated as per guideline and fluid electrolyte balance should strictly be monitored and recorded. Hospitals should have a proper antibiotic policy. They must also adopt infection control practices as per the government guidelines. The state government has carried out 10,405 sample tests in the past 24 hours. The total number of sample tests carried out in the state till Thursday stands at 5,08,001. The percentage of positive cases out of the samples tested stands at 3.90 percent. The total death toll across the state has gone up to 699 so far till Thursday out of which 16 have died of the disease in the past 24 hours. Kolkata has recorded 218 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours. The total number of infected patients in the city has reached 6,440.
Around 162 fresh cases have been found in North 24-Parganas in the past 24 hours and the total number of affected persons has reached 3,248. Howrah has seen a total 2,826 cases so far out of which 56 patients have been reported on Thursday. The containment zones in the state at present are 3,532 while that of in Kolkata, it's 1496, according to the state government sources.
Meanwhile, frontline warriors against COVID-19 are under threat as three health staff, including a doctor, have tested positive, a health official confirmed on Thursday. They all hail from Gangarampur block and are admitted to a designated hospital in Balurghat. The patients who had come in contact with them are being screened and have been advised home quarantine accordingly.
The family members of the doctor and the staff will also be screened and their samples will be tested. A source said further tracing has also been initiated. The source of infection is yet to be ascertained but they do not have any recent travel history.
"No epidemiological investigation of the cases was done. So there is no clear segregation on how many contracted the disease at the workplace and how many got it from the community," the source added.
The patients of the health centre where they are posted are believed to have contracted the disease on duty. The trio were asymptomatic and their test results came out positive. Disinfection activities have been initiated in their workplace to avoid community infection. Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Sukumar Dey in a statement on Thursday informed 184 patients have been cured so far and released from the hospital while 218 positive cases were reported since Thursday.
