KOLKATA: The Covid positivity rate in Bengal has been on the decline for the nine consecutive days and it dipped to 11.1% on Saturday, the lowest during the third wave. On Saturday, the number of tests conducted in the last 24 hours — 82,564 — has been the highest during the entire pandemic. Despite that, only 9,191 fresh cases were reported. Only 37 up from that of Friday, which had about 10,000 fewer tests conducted.
Health experts are confident of the infection rate getting slow in the state, but said we need to see how things go in the districts over the next seven days.
“If districts also see a steep decline over the next seven days, it would be the beginning of the end of this wave,” said IPGMER professor of surgery Diptendra Sarkar.
The state’s cumulative positivity had shot up to as high as 37% on January 10, during which Kolkata had reported close to 70% positivity. Now, even as the weekly positivity for the city between January 14 and 20, according to the health and family welfare data, is 39.4%, laboratories across Kolkata are reporting positivity between 25% and 30%. Between January 7 and 16, Kolkata’s weekly positivity was 59%.
“Positivity indicates the severity of transmission. This is a good sign, indicating transmission rate is coming down. At the same time, we need to reduce mortality and probe whether it is a comorbidity of Covid while increasing tests. If we can bring down the death rate, we will see brighter things in another two to three weeks,” said senior physician Sukumar Mukherjee, member Bengal’s Global Advisory Board for Covid-19.
While laboratories attached with hospitals still have a positivity rate hovering around 30% to 35%, the stand-alone laboratories are reporting a much lower rate. “The positivity rate has now gone down to about 25% in our laboratories across the city. It is quite natural for hospital-attached labs to have a relatively higher positivity as we tend to get a larger number of samples from asymptomatic patients for several purposes, including travel,” said Somnath Chatterjee, MD Suraksha Diagnostics.
The constant climb down in the positivity rate began from January 14. On Saturday, Kolkata recorded 1,489 fresh cases — only 114 up from Friday. Experts said the increase is insignificant compared to the increased number of tests.
“Decrease in rate of infection is satisfying for public health physicians, but there are a few worrisome points. Cases, as well as deaths, are now coming from rural parts and this should be a point of concern. People with mild symptoms are not going for tests either. So the real picture of Covid infection may not be reflected in total. We need to be vigilant and should observe for two more weeks,” said public health specialist Anirban Dalui.
In fact, weekly positivity-wise, Malda has taken over Kolkata by a slight margin this week. Districts, like Birbhum, Darjeeling and Kalimpong, also continue to have positivity above 30%.
With seven days having passed since the congregation at Gangasagar Mela, health experts feel the chances of a flaring up of numbers from the gathering is now low. “This is thanks to the focussed intervention and screening done by the state administration before allowing pilgrims to proceed. Those extra, careful measures have probably given us a positive result,” Sarkar said.
