'Large-scale vax drive in state helped control Omicron impact in a month'

KOLKATA: Single-day Covid cases in Bengal dropped to 767 on Friday from what stood at 817 on Thursday. State on Wednesday registered around 884 fresh cases.

Some of the health experts have pointed out that the sudden Covid surge that started from the beginning of January—mainly contributed by Omicron variant—has been brought under control within the span of a month because of the large-scale vaccination carried out by the state Health department.

Bengal has so far administered nearly 13 crore Covid vaccine doses.

As many as 7 crore people have received first Covid doses while around 5.38 crore received double doses. As nearly 100 per cent of the population has received a single dose of Covid, the Omicron variant failed to make any major impact on the people.

The elderly patients with comorbidities mostly turned critical and required critical care intervention.

The number of daily fatalities has gone up to 27 on Friday from what stood at 26 on Thursday.

It stood at 28 on Wednesday and 32 on Tuesday. In December last year daily fatalities remained below 10.

The figure started rising up to the level of 30-37 in the past one month.

Daily infection dropped but the number of daily fatalities is still higher.

Single-day cases in Kolkata dropped to 131 on Friday from 135 on Thursday. It stood at 102 on Wednesday.

After a month, single day Covid cases in Kolkata had gone down 100 on last Monday. Around 95 new cases have been registered in North 24-Parganas on Friday.

The total number of infected cases so far in the North 24-Parganas has gone up to 4,02,150. Out of this, around 3,94,720 have already been released.

North 24-Parganas has seen 7 Covid deaths on Friday while Kolkata has seen 4 deaths. Kolkata has so far seen a total 4,46,234 Covid infected cases. As many as 4,38,315 patients from Kolkata have already been released from the hospitals. The number of fatalities in the city so far reached 5,597.

The total number of infected cases reached 20,09,717 in Bengal so far. Out of this, around 19,74,568 patients have been released from the hospitals after recovery.

The Covid positivity rate on Friday dropped to 1.73 per cent from what stood at 1.80 percent on Thursday. State registered the discharge rate at 98.25 per cent on Friday.

Around 44,300 samples were tested across the state on Friday. State has so far carried out 2,36,86,853 sample tests. The RTPCR and Antigen test ratio remained at 41:59 on Friday.