Bengal achieves 25K swab sample tests per day ahead of August 15 deadline

  • | Friday | 7th August, 2020

Kolkata: In a major achievement in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, the Mamata Banerjee government on Thursday crossed the benchmark of conducting 25,000 swab sample tests per day, nine days ahead of the August 15 deadline. The Chief Minister had announced a month ago that the state government is creating infrastructure to increase the per day COVID-19 tests to 25,000 by August 15. The figure was only 11,000 per day on the day the Chief Minister had announced the set target for August 15. With speedy upgradation of the health infrastructure that is keeping the state ahead in the COVID-19 situation, Bengal recorded a fatality rate of only 2.2 percent. Interestingly, the present occupancy rate is around 39 percent and there is no dearth of beds in dedicated COVID-19 hospitals including in Kolkata.

Kolkata: In a major achievement in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, the Mamata Banerjee government on Thursday crossed the benchmark of conducting 25,000 swab sample tests per day, nine days ahead of the August 15 deadline. The Chief Minister had announced a month ago that the state government is creating infrastructure to increase the per day COVID-19 tests to 25,000 by August 15. In Banerjees presence, state Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha announced after the Cabinet meeting at Nabanna Sabhaghar that on Thursday, Bengal crossed the benchmark of conducting 25,000 tests per day and till date 10.25 lakh tests have been carried out. The figure was only 11,000 per day on the day the Chief Minister had announced the set target for August 15. "There are many states that are reducing the number of tests. But we will continue to increase considering that more tests at present are better for the future," Banerjee said after announcing the Cabinets decision to allow recruitment of 500 house staff, 53 medical officers and 18 medical technicians through walk-in interviews in this pandemic situation without going for the long-drawn recruitment process. It will be taking place through the West Bengal Health Recruitment Board in rural areas and West Bengal Municipal Service Corporation in the urban segments. With speedy upgradation of the health infrastructure that is keeping the state ahead in the COVID-19 situation, Bengal recorded a fatality rate of only 2.2 percent. Explaining the same, Sinha said it shows that there are deaths of only two persons out of 100 Covid patients and again 87.6 percent of them are due to comorbidities. He further added that daily analysis shows that 70 percent of the fatalities are due to delay in getting admitted to the hospitals. It would not have happened if they had got admitted before their condition had worsened. The Chief Minister congratulated all COVID-19 warriors for their efforts that ensured a 70.3 percent discharge rate. She also said that the plasma bank is beneficial to fight against the virus and experts opinions are being taken to consider whether the existing Cord Blood Bank can be of use to fight the disease. The state government has also set up 60 more beds in the Covid hospitals than its set target of 11,500 by July 31. Including the safe homes, there are at present 23,500 total number of beds. Interestingly, the present occupancy rate is around 39 percent and there is no dearth of beds in dedicated COVID-19 hospitals including in Kolkata. "The pressure in Kolkata is because of people preferring to get admitted here. It is not possible in this emergency, but best treatment by experts is guaranteed in all hospitals," he said adding that the Covid Patient Management System (CPMS) that uses real-time data including oxygen circulation, blood pressure and pulse rate of each and every admitted patient is supervised round-the-clock by 96 doctors in three shifts. Till 9 am on Thursday, 1144 patients are said to be critical, 1043 moderate and 1,946 are in mild condition. CPMS data can be accessed by people in the next one to two days. With the robust infrastructure in place, tele-medicine services were provided to 42,584 people in the past one month including 2,912 on Wednesday. Tele-psychological counselling that started from August 1 helped 3,875 COVID-19 patients including 1,238 on Wednesday itself and till date, 54,571 people were provided with free ambulance services in July and August. At the same time, 72,158 people were admitted to hospitals after receiving calls on the helpline numbers. The one-stop helpline number is 1800313444222. For direct tele-medicine and tele-ambulance service, one may contact 23576001 and 40902929 respectively.

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