Covid: Death toll in Bengal at 2%, lower than many states

Kolkata: Stating about the improvement in the discharge rate of Covid patients from hospitals, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha has stated about the series of steps that the Bengal government has taken including the introduction of Covid Patient Management System (CPMS) and extension of lockdown to stem the hike in Covid cases in the video conference with the Centre on Thursday.

Union Cabinet Secretary Rajib Gauba on Thursday held a video conference with all states on the present Covid situation in which Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha along with Health secretary NS Nigam highlighted the situation in Bengal. According to a senior official, the meeting was to take stock of the present Covid situation in every state.

The matter related to the death rate has come up in the meeting. Sources said that Gauba stated that it has to be brought down to 1 percent in every state. Though the Bengal government has become successful in bringing it down to 2 percent which was earlier around 3 percent, it is much higher in many other states. Even most of the deaths out of these 2 percent in Bengal are due to comorbidity.

The matter related to discharge rate has also been mentioned that was 80.28 percent on Thursday. As many as 3,314 people were discharged on Wednesday compared to that of 3251 on Tuesday, sources said.

This comes a day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee extended the lockdown till September 20 with complete statewide "twice-a-week" lockdown on September 7, 11 and 12. The state stands of keeping educational institutes closed till September 20 and allowing flight operations from six states - Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad - with high prevalence of Covid for three days from September 1 has been informed. At the same time the state's nod allowing operation of Metro and one-fourth of sub-urban trains following norms of physical distancing were also mentioned.

Sources said that the major success of the state government in ensuring availability of real-time health status of Covid patients admitted in any hospital across the state by their near and dear ones in just a click by using the Covid Patient Management System (CPMS) has been highlighted in the meeting.

It may be mentioned that the Chief Minister on Wednesday stated that the total number of deaths in Bengal was less in between April 1 and July 31 this year compared to that of in 2019. In between April 1 and July 31 in 2019, as many as 1,20,457 people died due to various reasons and this year it has reduced to 1,19,916 and it also includes the deaths due to Covid.

The state's success in increasing the number of tests to more than 40,000 a day has also been strongly highlighted in the video conference. As on Thursday, 42,474 swab sample tests were conducted in 70 laboratories.

One more laboratory will get added this week while approval of one is still pending.

The matter related to only 34.69 percent of bed occupancy in Covid hospital has also been mentioned. At the same time the state's success in ensuring oxygen supply mechanisms to every bed in Covid hospitals was also informed in the meeting. It has also been stated that, as on Wednesday, 19,351 Covid afflicted people ate in home isolation while 1,756 and 5,847 were admitted in safe homes and in hospitals.