Bengal sees spurt in Covid-19 cases, with Kolkata accounting for 56% of infections

West Bengal, which is witnessing a sudden spurt in Covid-19 cases from the beginning of this week, recorded 3,451 infections on Friday with Kolkata alone accounting for 1,954 or 56 per cent of these, a Health department bulletin said. The state had recorded 2,128 Covid-19 cases on Thursday, with the metropolis accounting for 1,090 of that. While the state's fresh infections shot up by 62 per cent, the eastern metropolis's new Covid cases went up by 79 per cent in 24 hours. The bulletin said that 7 persons died on Friday of the virus, while 12 people had perished from it the previous day.

A total of 19,764 people have died of the disease so far, according to the bulletin. Of the 7 deaths in the state, four persons died in Kolkata, 2 in North 24 Parganas and 1 in South 24 Parganas, the bulletin said. The positivity rate went up to 8.46 per cent from 5.47 per cent the previous day, while the number of daily tests went up from Thursday's 38,898 to 40,813 on Friday, it said. North 24 Parganas followed in the second position in number of infections with 496 cases on Friday, up from 315 on the previous day, the bulletin said. Apart from Kolkata and North 24 Parganas, the other districts which recorded high incidence of cases were Howrah (298), South 24 Parganas (126), Hooghly (118), Malda (60) and Nadia (53), according to the data.

With 1,510 people discharged on Friday, the recovery rate stood at 98.14 per cent, it said.


A total of 16,08,011 patients have been discharged so far, it said, adding that the total Covid cases recorded in the state was 16,38,485. A total of 2,13,91,872 samples have been tested in West Bengal so far, the bulletin said.