West Bengal health department on Sunday reported an all-time high of 24,287 new cases of Covid-19 infections, the highest since the first wave of infections hit the country in 2020.
Kolkata registered the highest number of new cases at 8,712 compared to 7,337 cases on Saturday. The state’s positivity rate stands at 33.89%, while Kolkata’s positivity rate stands at 41.93%.
While neighbouring North 24 Parganas with several of Kolkata’s satellite towns including Salt Lake and its infotech and commercial hub accounting for 5,053 cases against the previous day’s 3,286 cases.
In the last 24 hours, 71,664 samples have been tested in West Bengal taking the total number of such clinical examinations to 2,18,74,205, the bulletin stated.
“The infection is spreading like wildfire,” said a Swasthya Bhawan official, adding, “Let us not be surprised if we reach double the number of what we are seeing at present in the next two weeks. The hospitalisation and mortality rates, too, will start rising gradually. But we intend to hike up testing to detect as much as possible.”
Senior healthcare officials in December had already alerted all healthcare stakeholders of the possibility of fresh daily cases rising to 30,000 in two to three weeks.
Experts warned that the crest of the third wave was yet to come, during which the daily case-load could easily double and hospitalisations increase. The reassuring factor was that the rates of hospitalisation and mortality were still low, especially when compared with the devastating second wave’s. But calculated projections of the near future show that absolute numbers would only rise for a while now.
