Kolkata: The move of the Mamata Banerjee government to impose restrictions with a "strict containment approach" has resulted in a significant drop in the daily Covid positivity rate as it went down to 18 to 19 percent.
"The daily positivity rate that used to be around 33 percent has dropped to 18 to 19 percent," Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said while addressing the media at Nabanna on Saturday.
She further said the average death rate due to Covid during the second wave is lesser than that of the first wave. "The average death rate is 0.56 percent during the second wave which was 1.67 percent during Covid first wave," she said.
This comes when the state government has already extended the restrictions till June 15. "We have extended the restrictions for another 15 days. We expect the situation to improve further with the curbs," she said. The state government on Thursday announced extension of the additional restrictions "with a stricter containment approach" to check the surge in Covid cases till 6 pm on June 15.
An order in this regard was issued on Saturday. It was initially imposed on May 15 for a fortnight till 6 pm on May 30.
A set of relaxations for jute mills have also been announced. They will now be allowed to operate with 40 percent workers in each shift, which is 10 percent more than that of the previously sanctioned 30 percent manpower.
Covid cases on Saturday dropped to 11,514 which was as high as 19,511 on May 15 when the additional restrictions were announced.