West Bengal reports over 2,000 new COVID-19 cases for first time in a single day

KOLKATA: West Bengal reported over 2,000 new COVID-19 cases on a single-day for the first time on Saturday as the state's tally breached the 40,000-mark, according to the state health department.

The state detected 2,198 new cases, following which its active cases soared to 15,594, it said in a bulletin.

Twenty-seven more people died, taking the state's total fatalities to 1,076, the department said. The state has so far reported 40,209 cases of COVID-19.

Record 1,286 people also recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours and since Friday evening, 13,465 samples have been tested, it said.

Earlier in the day, the state government said there was no need to panic as the COVID-19 situation was under control.

Addressing a press conference, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said the spike in the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state was normal as "more the number of tests, more the number of cases".

"The situation in Bengal is under control. The death rate which was earlier very high has now come down to 2.7 per cent, which is very close to the national average of 2.5 per cent," he said.

The state's recovery rate dipped to 58.54 per cent. It was 60.06 per cent on July 15.

A total of 23,539 people have recovered from the disease so far.

Kolkata recorded its highest single-day spike with 648 new cases. The city at present has 5,155 active COVID-19 cases.

Most of the latest deaths were also reported from Kolkata where 12 people succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours.

Four deaths each were reported from Hooghly and North 24 Parganas districts, and two each from South 24 Parganas and Paschim Medinipore.

One death each were recorded in Howrah, Dakshin Dinajpur and Alipurduar districts, it added.

Of the 2,198 fresh cases, 554 were detected in North 24 Parganas, 160 in Howrah and 142 in South 24 Parganas. Hooghly district reported 107 new cases.