Bengal logs 19,091 fresh cases; 162 people dead in past 24 hours

KOLKATA: Single-day Covid infections stood at 19,091 on Thursday. The total infected tally reached 12,09,958 on Thursday. About 162 people died in Bengal in the past 24 hours.

This is the highest casualties in a single day ever since the pandemic broke out last year. The number of fatalities stood at 157 on Wednesday and 145 fatalities were reported on Tuesday. The number of fatalities registered each day is still a matter of concern for the health officials. Around 13,895 people have so far died of Covid in the state.

Around 10,64,553 patients have already been released from the hospitals. As many as 18,910 patients have been discharged in the past 24 hours. The Covid recovery rate on Thursday stood at 87.98 per cent. The percentage of positive cases out of the sample tested stands at 10.33. The percentage of occupancy of Covid beds in the State reached 38.49 on Thursday.

Kolkata has registered 36 deaths on Wednesday while North 24-Parganas has registered 37 deaths. South 24-Parganas has reported 12 deaths on Wednesday, Howrah 12, Hooghly 8, West Midnapore 4, Bankura 7, Purulia 5, Birbhum 3, Nadia 5, Murshidabad 8, Malda 1, South Dinajpur 3, North Dinajpur 1, Jalpaiguri 5, Darjeeling 3, Coochbehar 1, Alipurduar 1.

Kolkata in the past 24 hours has registered 3,461 fresh cases and North 24-Parganas 4,118. The total death toll in Kolkata has so far reached 4,071 whereas North 24-Parganas has lost 3,450 people so far. The tally of infected patients in Kolkata has gone up to 2,68,837 while North 24-Parganas has so far seen a total 2,58,748. South 24-Parganas has registered 1,287 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours. The total number of Covid infected patients in South 24-parganas has gone up to 74,445. Howrah and Hooghly have so far registered 1,255 and 676 deaths respectively and total infected cases in these two districts are 73,540 and 62,774 respectively.

Meanwhile, the State Health Department on Thursday issued an advisory to reduce mortality of Covid infected patients in different designated Covid hospitals. The advisory laid emphasis on round the clock clinical assessment of patients, monitoring of the clinical investigation parameters and adherence to the treatment protocol.

All the Principals of the medical colleges and the Chief Medical Officers of health in the districts have been asked to designate a nodal officer who will help the hospital superintendents in deciding and implementing all medical and administrative measures. The nodal officers will maintain liaison with the protocol monitoring team. The advisory also says that the designated Covid hospitals and other hospitals having Covid wards must constitute an in-house Covid Patient Management Cum Outcome Review Committee headed by concerned medical superintendent of the hospitals and comprising the nodal officer, representatives of faculties, nursing superintendents.

The committee should sit together at least twice a week and will review all the medical aspects of patient care. They will go through the treatment record of the critical patients to identify the scopes of improvement. The committee will make necessary capacity building of faculties, doctors and other staff. It will also monitor the decongestion of the wards with rational bed allocation and bed turnover.

Health department also issued an order on Thursday instructing the hospitals to form a Quick Response Team (QRT) composed of specialist MO,GDMO, staff nurse, MT (CCU) and other staff. The QRT will take care of the critical cases round the clock.