Diamond Harbour Sole Bright Spot in Bengal’s Grim Covid Picture, Positivity Down to 12% in Four Days

West Bengal’s Covid-19 tally registered a four-fold jump since the beginning of the year on Friday with 18,213 fresh cases being reported in a single day. Capital Kolkata alone accounted for 7,484 new infections.

A patch of green amid the wildfire-like spread of the novel coronavirus is the town of Diamond Harbour which managed to bring down the positivity rate from 20% to 12% in just four days.

As per government data, total active cases in Diamond Harbour stood at 279 on January 3, with 112 new infections recorded in 24 hours preceding the date. On January 7, the active case load in the area was 685, with 299 new infections recorded in the preceding 24 hours.

The positivity rate on January 3 in Diamond Harbour was recorded around 20% as per both RT-PCR and RAT tests, while on January 7, it was recorded at 12%.

The drop in positivity rate has been attributed to a number of measures, including ramped up rapid testing in Sadar sub-division and sharper police vigil on Covid-appropriate behaviour in public places like markets. Political and religious gatherings have also been strictly restricted while hourly public announcements are made on importance of masking, hand hygiene and social distancing.

Speaking to News18.com Diamond Harbour MP and Trinamool Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, who set up a three-level Covid task force in the area, said: “From positivity rate of 20% four days ago, we have been able to bring it down to 12%. This is only by enforcing strict measures. Now I am trying to get it below 5% in the next 10 days. We are taking all measures and this data clearly shows strict measures help in controlling the numbers.”

As of Friday, West Bengal had 51,384 active cases, while 7,912 patients recovered from the disease in the preceding 24 hours. The positivity rate in the state rose to 26.34% compared to 24.71% reported on Thursday. The North 24 Parganas district accounted for 3,118 new cases, while Howrah (1,360) and Paschim Bardhaman (1,043) were other districts with large numbers of cases.

The state government has, meanwhile, decided to go ahead with the Gangasagar Mela, a religious gathering at an island where river Ganga enters the Bay of Bengal. The Calcutta High Court has allowed the mela to be held subject to stringent conditions which include declaring Sagar a notified area.

Another condition is setting up a committee which may recommend to the state a ban on entry to Sagar Island if there is any violation of health safety norms.

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