Cases stand at 686; about 11 fatalities reported in a day

kolkata: Single-day Covid infected cases slightly dropped on Friday compared to Thursday's figure and the state also witnessed a drop in daily fatalities.

Two Delta plus-like variants were found in the state. The number of fresh cases on Friday stood at 686 while on Thursday the number remained at 695. Around 11 people died of Covid across Bengal on Friday lower than Thursday's figure of 12.

According to the health department Bengal has reported a Delta plus like variant and also seen another sub-lineage variant of Delta (AY.4). "Delta plus variant (a sub-lineage AY.3) was found in the state in August.

Similarly another sub-lineage variant of delta variant (AY.4) which was included in the group of delta Plus by the government of India has been found in the state from the sample collected during July and sent on 2nd August.

So far these two sub-lineages of Delta variant were found in the State, but there is no information of any outbreak of this kind," a senior health official said.

The total number of infected people has reached 15,50,664 so far. Out of this, around 15,23,487 people have so far recovered and released from the hospitals. Around 18,483 people have so far died of Covid in the state. The fatality rate however stands at 1.19 percent for nearly 4 weeks. The Covid recovery rate on Friday stands at 98.25 percent.

As many as 715 people were discharged from different hospitals on Friday. The percentage of occupancy of Covid beds in the State remains at 3.24. The positivity rate stood at 1.58 on Friday.

Around 109 fresh Covid cases were detected in North 24-Parganas while in Kolkata the number was registered at 110. Darjeeling has seen 49 new cases, South 24-Parganas 45 and Hooghly 42 and Howrah 48. Bengal has so far carried out 1,71,22,925 Covid sample tests out of which around 43,504 tests were done in the past 24 hours. Kolkata and North 24 Parganas have seen 3 and 4 deaths respectively on Friday.

Hooghly has seen 2 deaths, South 24-Parganas and Nadia each have registered 1.

Health department has so far addressed 21,46,448 general queries so far out of which 2,435 queries were addressed in the past 24 hours. State has so far given telemedicine consultations to 8,69,736 people so far out of which 1,248 were given consultation in the past 24 hours.

Around 504 people have been given tele-psychological counselling in the past 24 hours taking the total number of counselling to 4,23,680 till Friday.