Bengal reports highest single-day cases at 6,910

Kolkata: Bengal has seen 6,910 fresh Covid cases on Friday which is the highest so far since the pandemic broke out. Single-day Covid cases are going up gradually. This has become a concern for the Health department.

On Thursday, the new cases remained at 6,769. The total tally of infected people reached 6,43,795 on Friday. The number of active Covid cases however stands at 41,047. Around 5,92,242 patients have already been released from the hospitals out of which 2,818 patients were discharged in the past 24 hours. The Covid recovery rate on Friday stood at 91.99 per cent. The percentage of positive cases out of the sample tested stands at 6.63.

The percentage of occupancy of Covid beds in the State jumped to 36.51 percent from 34.29 on Thursday. The state has so far carried out 97,15,115 Covid sample tests out of which 40,153 were performed in the past 24 hours. Bengal on Friday has seen 26 deaths on Friday which is the highest in a single day this year. The total death toll in the state has reached 10,506.

Meanwhile, the state Health department held a meeting with private hospitals and leading manufacturers of Remdesivir. At the meeting, it was decided that the state government would act as a bridge between the private hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to ensure a steady supply of the drug crucial in treating Covid patients. Currently, there is a shortage of Remdesivir across all private hospitals and the State Health department has been helping to coordinate with pharmaceutical companies like Cipla, Zydus Cadilla, Hetero, etc. The supply of Remdesivir is expected to get better from next week, sources said.

Kolkata in the past 24 hours registered 9 deaths and North 24-Parganas has registered 7 deaths, Howrah and Malda each have registered 3 deaths. Murshidabad has registered 2 and Nadia and East Midnapore have registered one death each. Kolkata in the past 24 hours has registered 1,844 fresh cases followed by North 24-Parganas 1,592. The total death toll in Kolkata has so far reached 3,191. North 24-Parganas has lost 2,580 people so far. The tally of infected patients in Kolkata has gone up to 1,48,802 while North 24-Parganas has so far seen a total 1,38,933. South 24-Parganas has registered 402 new Covid cases in the past 24 hours. The total number of Covid infected patients in South 24-Parganas has gone up 41,399.

There are around 1,796 ICU/HDU beds functional in Covid hospitals. Around 525 ventilators are still functioning in Covid hospitals. The total number of earmarked Covid beds stood at 7,428 on Friday. There are currently 200 Safe Homes and around 11,507 beds are there in these Safe Homes. Around 105 testing laboratories have been made functional in the state while one is waiting for approval. There are 56 dedicated Covid hospitals operational in the state out of which 45 are government hospitals.