Bengal logs 6,078 new Covid cases, 13 deaths

Kolkata, Jan 3 (PTI) West Bengal on Monday registered 6,078 new Covid-19 cases, 75 less than the previous day's figure, pushing the tally to 16,55,228, the health department said.

The death toll also went up to 19,794 after 13 more people succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, the department said in a bulletin. The state on Sunday had recorded eight Covid-19 fatalities.

Altogether 2,917 coronavirus patients have been discharged from various hospitals in the state. The discharge rate dipped slightly to 97.58 per cent from Sunday's 97.77 per cent.

The number of active cases is 20,186 now, 3,148 more than what it was on Sunday.

In the last 24 hours, 31,030 samples have been tested for Covid-19 in West Bengal taking the total number of such clinical examinations to 2,14,99,077, the bulletin said.

The positivity rate in West Bengal is 19.59 per cent on Monday. It was 15.93 per cent on the previous day.

Kolkata accounted for 2,801 fresh cases of the contagion while neighbouring North 24 Parganas district reported 1,057 new infections. The metropolis and North 24 Parganas registered four deaths each on Monday.

On Monday, six foreign returnees, including two each from Sweden and France, tested positive for Covid-19 following which they were hospitalised, a health department official said.

The countries from where the other two had come were not yet confirmed.

"Four of them are admitted to a hospital and their samples were sent for genome sequencing (to check if they were affected by the omicron variant of the virus). We are waiting for the report of these four and nine others whose samples were collected earlier," the official said.

West Bengal at the moment has 14 active Omicron cases. he said.

Malda district magistrate Rajarshi Mitra tested positive for the virus, health department sources said.

Over 100 doctors at various hospitals in the state have also tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, they said. According to Trinamool Congress sources, the party's state general secretary Kunal Ghosh was also afflicted with the disease.

Meanwhile, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation on Monday announced at least 25 micro-containment zones in the city.

On Monday, at least 1,02,837 Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered for youngsters, aged between 15 and 18 years, the health department official said.

The vaccination drive for them started on Monday. PTI SCH NN NN