Covid 19 death toll in Bengal jumps to 172

During the same time, another 148  people also tested positive of Coronavirus, taking the total number of such active cases in the state to 2,825 from 2,677 yesterday, the latest medical bulletin issued by the state Health Department said.

The number of those who have also lost their lives in different comorbidities during the last few days remained stagnant at 72 for the past about ten days, the total number of deaths since the outbreak of the killer disease in West Bengal has now touched the figure of 244 (172 plus 72).

All the 6 deaths since yesterday were in Kolkata as well as the maximum number of those affected during the same time, the bulletin said and expressed concern at the changing scenario of the present grim situation.

Most of the other people who also reportedly tested positive were from the Red zones of North 24 Parganas, Howrah, South Parganas, Hooghly and Nadia districts.

47 Corona positive patients recovered and were discharged from different hospitals during the last 24 hours taking their total number to 1,006  so far, the rate of recovery of Corona patients in West Bengal had now gone up to 35.6 per cent against the national average of around 37 per cent, the Medical bulletin claimed.

However, it said, among the 148 additional people tested positive, the highest  102 were from Kolkata alone, followed by others from Howrah (24), North and South 24 Parganas (12), Midnapore (3), Hooghly(2) and Nadia (2) districts.

Meanwhile, with the beginning of the 4.0 lockdown in the state from this morning along with the rest of the country, the city police have decided to further tighten its already stringent measures for proper implementation of the government orders in each of the state’s around 550 Containment zones, including around 360 in Kolkata alone by setting up steel barricades in every road corners in these areas preventing free movement of people and any vehicle. Plans were now afoot to divide the entire Containment zones in the city into three separate groups for better implementation.

Referring to the total number of active Covid 19 patients being treated in different government hospitals, the Bulletin said it now stood at 1575 as on today with about 12 per cent jump in their numbers in one day.

So far 29,615 people went home from government quarantine facilities and another 77,235 were released from over 5,000 Home quarantine facilities, the bulletin said.

After ramping up the testing efforts of suspected and asymptomatic patients, as many as 7614 tests were conducted in West Bengal during the last 24 hours taking their total number to over 93,570 so far.

With more than 400 nursing staff from a number of private hospitals in the city leaving for Manipur, Odisha and Tripura during the last 48 hours for fear of getting affected by Covid-19 virus, the state government has expressed serious concern about their drastic shortfall for the treatment of patients in different hospitals and urged them not do leave the state at the current juncture and promised them all assistance and protection to improve their condition both financially and in terms of their health concern.

Such a mass exodus of nursing staff has already provided a massive blow to the dwindling Health services in the city in the middle of a current grim situation and created a huge shortage in the number of qualified nursing staff in the overall fight against the disease, Government sources said.

About the supply of Medical kits, the bulletin reiterated that so far  8.48 lakh PPEs, 3.8 lakhs N95 masks, 26.2 lakhs other masks and over 1.32 lakh litres of hand sanitizers had been provided to different hospitals and other health centres to help fight the disease.