State records 2,128 cases in a day, Omicron tally climbs to 16

kolkata: State has seen 2,128 new Covid cases on Thursday. The number stood at 1,089 on Wednesday. Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr Ajay Chakraborty said: "Genome sequencing report received on Thursday for 6 International travellers. Five out of 6 are Omicron positive." The Omicron tally in state now stands at 16.

Genome sequencing report of 44-year-old male and a 5-year-old girl child, who have been undergoing treatment with Covid at two private hospitals in the city came positive to Omicron.

State Health department has directed all the civic bodies including the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the district administrations to set up micro containment zones in those areas where Omicron infected cases have been reported. The development comes on the day when Kolkata has seen a whopping spike in daily Covid cases. The city's daily cases recorded a 101.85 percent jump.

KMC has been asked to be extra cautious as most of the Omicron cases are the residents of Kolkata. Micro-containment zones will be set up on emergency basis in the specific areas. All the Chief Medical Officer of Health in the districts have been asked by the Health department to increase RT-PCR tests. Incidentally it may be mentioned that principal of the Dr R Ahmed Dental College and Hospital and three interns of the same college tested positive for Covid. The interns were staying at the college hostel. All the interns and the principal have been staying at home isolation. Their samples will be sent for genome sequencing.

Bengal on Wednesday saw 752 single day cases. North 24-Parganas has seen 315 new cases. A total 3,35,813 infected cases have so far been found in Kolkata so far out of which around 3,26,903 people were already discharged from the hospitals. North 24-Parganas has so far seen a total of 3,36,595 infected cases till Wednesday out of which 3,30,188 patients have been released. South 24-Parganas has seen 106 new cases on Thursday, Hooghly 91, Howrah 158, Darjeeling 27, Nadia 36.

The total number of infected cases in Bengal has so far gone up to 16,35,034 on Thursday out of which 16,06,501 patients have been released from hospitals after being recovered. Covid positivity rate in Bengal on Thursday went up to 5.47 on Thursday from what stood at 2.84 percent on Wednesday.

The active Covid cases in Bengal went up by a huge margin of 1,049 on Thursday. The number of active Covid cases jumped to 8,776 on Thursday from 7,727 on Wednesday.

Around 12 people died of Covid in the state on Thursday taking the total death toll to 19,757. The number of fatalities remained at 12 on Wednesday. Around 38,898 samples were tested across the state on Thursday. State has so far carried out 2,13,51,059 sample tests.

The RTPCR and Antigen test ratio remained at 53:47 on Thursday. State has so far given telemedicine consultations to 10,13,769 people so far out of which 1,251 were given consultation in the past 24 hours.