Bengal records 717 cases; at least 9 fatalities in past 24 hours

kolkata: The number of Covid infected cases is still higher in the districts like North 24-Parganas, Kolkata and Darjeeling. This has become a concern for the health department ahead of a possible third wave.

As many as 86 fresh cases were detected in North 24-Parganas on Friday while Kolkata has seen 71 new Covid cases and Darjeeling 54. The number of single-day Covid infections has dropped to 717 on Friday from 812 on Thursday.

The number of single-day fatalities also dropped to 9 from what it stood at 13 on Thursday. Around 18,202 people have so far died of Covid across the state. The total tally of COVID-19 infected cases reached 15,32,379. Around 15,03,535 patients have already been released from the hospitals as they recovered. As many as 787 people were discharged from different hospitals on Friday.

The recovery rate has reached 98.12 percent whereas the fatality rate remains at 1.19 percent. The percentage of positive cases out of the sample tested remained at 1.50 on Friday whereas the percentage of occupancy of Covid beds in the State remains at 3.85. Bengal has so far carried out 1,59,99,961 Covid sample tests out of which around 47,773 tests were done in the past 24 hours.

Coochbehar reported 33 new cases on Friday, Jalpaiguri 52, Hooghly 51 new cases, South 24-Parganas 44 and Howrah 40. North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas have registered 2 deaths each on Friday while Kolkata has seen none. Hooghly has registered 1 death, Jhargram 1, Nadia 1, Darjeeling 1 and Kalimpong 1. The total death toll in Kolkata has so far reached 4,977 whereas North 24-Parganas has lost 4,576 people so far.

Meanwhile, Bengal has so far cumulatively administered 3,17,63,297 doses so far till Friday out of which 3,61,837 doses were applied on people across the state in the past 24 hours. On Thursday, more than 4 lakh doses were administered across the state. In the special category vaccine group aged between 18-45, around 69,90,482 doses have been administered so far. State has so far crossed the 4 lakh mark of daily vaccination for the fourth time. Around 582 people have been given tele-psychological counselling in the past 24 hours taking the total number of counselling to 4,08,898 till Friday. The Health department has so far addressed 20,76,475 general queries so far out of which 2,612 queries were addressed in the past 24 hours. Telemedicine consultations have been given to 1,402 people on Friday and around 8,32,735 people have so far received telemedicine consultations till date.

Meanwhile, Kolkata Municipal Corporation will not be able to administer Covishield for the second consecutive day on Saturday too due to short supply of vaccine.

All the 102 urban primary health centres and 50 mega centres in the city could not provide Covishield jabs on Friday. The situation will be the same on Saturday too. "We are hopeful of administering doses from Monday- Tuesday with supply scheduled to come this weekend," a senior official of KMC's Health department said.

Kolkata that usually provides around 50000 vaccine shots on an average could vaccinate a little less than 24000 people on Friday due to the Covishield crunch.