11 more die of COVID-19 in West Bengal, total death toll 61

Eleven people died due to COVID-19 in West Bengal in the last 24 hours, taking to 61 the total number of people to have succumbed to the disease in the state, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said on Monday. The number of active coronavirus cases in the state rose to 908 with 61 more people testing positive for the infection, he said.

Later, in an absolutely changed format of the health bulletin, the state government said there were 72 coronavirus deaths due to comorbidities. Altogether 218 people have been discharged from hospitals across the state following their recovery, Sinha said.

According to the chief secretary, there were a total of 1,259 COVID-19 cases in West Bengal while the figure as per the Union Health ministry is 963. Since Sunday, 2,201 samples were tested and the total number of such tests so far were 25,106, Sinha said.

The recovery rate in West Bengal is 17.32 per cent while the per million positive cases are 13.98, Sinha said, adding that the death per million rate is 1.47. On the disparity in actual and reported figures of the number of deaths and that of the infected, Sinha claimed that there was a "problem in the reporting structure for COVID-19".

"We are taking figures from private laboratories, hospitals, government laboratories, and hospitals. I could not understand why there were gaps among these figures. We found that the biggest problem was in the reporting system... We also noticed that some figures were not getting registered... This was not done deliberately... We tried an improvement on this which took a couple of days for which we were not able to give the cumulative figure," he said. The chief secretary said the department was not getting real time data from the private hospitals which was adding to the gap.

Meanwhile, state home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who was also present at the press meeting, said West Bengal has seen a rise in the number of containment zones after 72 more were added taking the total number of such areas in the state to 516. Besides Kolkata, the three districts of North 24 Parganas, Howrah and Purba Medinipore have also come under the red zone.

"There are at the moment 516 containment zones in West Bengal. The highest number of such zones is in Kolkata. We are not going to allow any form of activities in these zones other than essential services. The relaxations which have been announced by the centre and the state governments at this stage of lockdown will not be implemented in these areas," Bandyopadhyay said. He also said the state government, to help people from other states who are stranded in West Bengal and want to return to their homes, has initiated an "exit app".

"The exit from West Bengal in case of stranded people has been made extremely easy and virtually automatically. We will also be writing to the nodal authority separately to ease their exit," the home secretary said. State health secretary Vivek Kumar said in all districts, where trains from Kerala and Rajasthan are reaching or the places where people were entering through roadways, the department has taken all precautionary measures at the point of entry.