With 10 crore population, Bengal has only 662 serious Covid cases

Kolkata: The Bengal government on Saturday said there was no need to panic as the COVID-19 situation in the state was under control and the state was leading from the front in the fight against the deadly pandemic.

Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha on Saturday said: "There is nothing to panic as the state is much ahead in terms of infrastructure needed to fight against the virus. With a population of 10 crore, we have only 1,900 people who are seriously and moderately ill. Comparing it with the present health infrastructure shows that we are very well capable of handling the situation."

Later, the state Home department tweeted: "As on today, out of 14,709 active Covid cases in West Bengal, only 662 patients are in a serious category while 1,250 are moderate. That means only 1,912 patients need to be in the hospital in the entire state. Rest 12,796 are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic (87%) and so no need to panic."

Urging people to look at the progression in other states and countries, Sinha said: "The situation here is not at all alarming. The cases will be coming down drastically with the measures we have taken." He has ruled out all possibilities of imposing state-wide lockdown as per the current situation and stressed continuing the same in the containment zones.

The state government has set a target of increasing the total number of COVID-19 beds by another 5,000 by August end which at present stands at 15,000. This comes when around 120 patients are getting admitted daily and the occupancy rate in Kolkata and rest of Bengal is 72 and 35 per cent in 54 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals.

Besides increasing beds for treatment of Coronavirus patients, the state government has also taken a series of initiatives including the introduction of a one-stop 24x7 helpline number — 1800313444222 — for people staying in home isolation where a caller from any part of the state will be provided round-the-clock medical consultation. At the same time, assistance to admit a patient to a state-run hospital by sending an ambulance will be provided if a caller seeks for the same.

Stating that as per WHO's standard, there must be 140 swab sample tests per million, Sinha announced the achievement of the state in crossing the threshold by conducting 144 tests per million and a target has been set to take it to 275 per million. "At present, around 13,000 tests are taking place every day that will go up to 25,000. The number of Covid cases will spike with an increase in tests, but there is nothing to panic as data microanalysis shows that only a small percentage of it is seriously ill," he added. COVID-19 death rate in Bengal is 2.76 compared to that of the national average of 2.53 per cent.

Currently, there are more than 600 safe homes with 6,000 beds and only 500 are occupied. Oxygen facilities and dedicated medical teams have been made available at the safe homes. Each of these has been tagged with a COVID-19 hospital and an ambulance.

The state government is also going to add some more possible co-morbid cases along with SARI and ILI for identification of susceptible people by ASHA workers during door-to-door visits.

Sinha also added: "We have heard that ICMR has sent a new type of test kit in which the possibility of getting tested positive is more as no proper training has been undertaken. We are cautious knowing that there is an element of false positives in such a sophisticated kind of testing and we are taking necessary measures for it."