Bengal records 100+ cases of Covid-19 on a single day for first time
Kolkata is emerging as a major concern with 119 cases reported in last three days.
West Bengal reported 112 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, reporting more than a hundred cases on a single day for the first time that took the state’s tally to 1,456, the government said.
The state reported 426 new cases between May 1 and May 6. The rise has been attributed to the increase in the number of tests – 2,570 persons were tested on Wednesday – while new cases have also been reported from hitherto unaffected areas. The number of containment zones in the state has also increased from 444 on April 30 to 555 on May 6.
While Kolkata, and its neighbouring districts of Howrah and North 24-Parganas have so far been the state’s major concern – accounting for 754, 289, and 202 cases respectively – new cases were reported from 7 districts on May 4, from 9 districts on May 5 and from 8 districts on May 6.
Kolkata has emerged as the biggest challenge for the state government, with the capital city accounting for more than half of the state’s Covid-19 cases. Containment zones in the city increased from 264 on April 30 to 334 of May 6, while 119 people tested positive for coronavirus infection in the last three days.
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“Our number of tests has significantly increased and we hope to conduct 2,500 statewide tests on an average from now on,” state home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said.
A total of 2,570 tests were conducted on Wednesday and, on average, Bengal has conducted 2,269 cases a day over the past six days, with 13,616 tests conducted between May 1 and 6. In contrast, the state tested only 16,455 people in the 45 days between March 17 and April 30.
Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said the figures “should not been seen like cricket scorecards”. “Given the nature of the virus, every state will have its own time of peaking and flattening of the curve,” said Ghosh Dastidar who is a doctor by qualification.
Meanwhile, union home secretary Ajay Bhalla, in yet another letter to Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha on Wednesday said that the state’s low testing rate and very high mortality rate reflected “poor surveillance, detection and testing.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), too, blamed a poorly implemented lockdown for the spread of the disease. “The lockdown was never implemented properly. People freely crowded as the police stood bystanders,” alleged BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh, a Lok Sabha MP.