West Bengal: Micro contain zones back as Covid cases rise – Times of India

KOLKATA: Fresh Covid cases in Kolkata crawled up to 268 on Saturday, a sharp rise since last week when the number had slid to 108 on October 16, according to the daily state health department bulletin.

This prompted the government to reintroduce micro-containment zones, with 54 in North 24 Parganas and 14 in Howrah. 10 micro-containment zones have come up in Salt Lake, most spread across sectors II and III, three have come up in Lake Town. There are 10 such zones in Barrackpore. In Howrah, micro-containment zones have come up at 6pm on Saturday mostly in Andul Road (3), while the others are spread across urban Howrah.
Cops, meanwhile, set up naka points in various parts of Kolkata for stricter enforcement of night curbs.
Fresh cases stood at 242 in the city on Friday and experts sounded an alert warning it will continue to spiral even though most could be asymptomatic, resulting in fewer hospitalizations and deaths.
The state recorded 974 new cases and 12 deaths on Saturday.
Micro containment zones will be declared in places where positivity rate is rising rapidly, chief secretary HK Dwivedi and health secretary NS Nigam told district magistrates at a meeting on Saturday. Dwivedi asked district officials to increase health infrastructure so that more Covid positive patients can be admitted and arrange for providing oxygen supply.
Number of daily fresh cases, however, were far higher according to KMC that has been releasing its own data since Thursday. It claimed that the number of cases shot up to 449 in greater Kolkata area on Saturday. According to KMC coordinator Atin Ghosh, the figures include data collected from all 144 ward areas.
Two sets of data, one from health department and the other from KMC, was creating confusion, felt some experts. “It is misleading at a time when the numbers are rising,” said an internal medicine consultant.
Within KMC area, number of affected stood at 318, of whom 257 were asymptomatic. The number of affected stood at 362 in greater Kolkata on Thursday. It had climbed down to 319 on Friday, including 260 in the KMC area.
The spurt in numbers was waiting to happen and was hastened by the gatherings during Pujas, said CMRI Hospital director of pulmonology Raja Dhar.
Another reason behind the sharp spurt is rise in test numbers that had dropped during the festival, said experts. From around 38,000 a month ago, it had slid to 23,000 during the festival. It has spiraled to 43,000 now.
The number of asymptomatic cases, according to the KMC, stood at 200 out of 242 cases recorded on Friday. “A vast majority of the cases will be asymptomatic due to vaccination and herd immunity,” said IPGMER professor Diptendra Sarkar.
(With inputs from Debasish Konar in Kolkata and Rupak Banerjee in Howrah)