Bengal: COVID-19 death toll rises to 540 with 11 more fatalities

Kolkata, Jun 20 (PTI) With 11 more people succumbing to COVID-19 in West Bengal, the death toll rose to 540 on Saturday while 441 fresh instances of the viral infection took the total tally of cases to 13,531, the state health department said in a bulletin.

Of the fresh deaths, two each were reported from North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Howrah districts and one each from Kolkata, Paschim Medinipur, Darjeeling and Birbhum. All were due to comorbidities where COVID-19 was incidental, it said.

The state also recorded the highest number of recoveries in a single day on Saturday with 562 patients being discharged from hospitals, improving the recovery rate to over 58 per cent, the bulletin said.

West Bengal now has 5,126 active cases, while the total number of people cured of the disease stood at 7,865.

Among the new instances of the disease, Kolkata accounted for the highest 127 cases. Besides, 56 cases each were reported from North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Howrah districts, 47 from Alipurduar, 20 from Darjeeling, 17 from Malda, 16 from Nadia, 15 from Hooghly and 13 from Jalpaiguri.

The total number of samples tested in West Bengal in the last 24 hours is 10,330 -- the maximum in a day.

The health department also decided to start random tests from next week to check the transmission of coronavirus, a senior official said. PTI SCH NN NSD NSD