Of this, 72 is due to ‘comorbidities’, says State govt

One hundred and five persons who tested positive for COVID-19 in West Bengal have died, and of these, 72 were due to comorbidities, West Bengal State Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha said on Thursday, referring to a report by a government audit committee.

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Meanwhile, the number of testing went up hugely - 13% - in the last 24 hours from 14,620 to 16,525.

The committee was set up on April 3 for “conducting an audit of suspected deaths due to COVID-19”. It is only after its nod that a death gets reflected in the tally of fatalities in the official bulletin. If after investigation, it feels that a death was due to “severe comorbidity” - or due to other ailment - then the death is excluded from the list.

Till Wednesday, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 was 22. When asked whether the 11 deaths added to the official tally occurred within the past 24 hours, Mr. Sinha denied it. He said that only two deaths occurred in the past 24 hours and the additions were because the audit committee’s recent report had approved 11 more deaths due to COVID-19.

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Another role of the audit committee, he said, was to look into the “treatment protocol” of COVID-19 patients.

Questions about setting up such a panel were raised in several quarters, including Opposition political parties. Parties hit the streets during the day raising questions about the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s remarks on Wednesday that she had no role in setting up the committee.

In Kolkata

The government said there were 444 containment zones, of which 264 were in Kolkata. Howrah had 72 and North 24 Parganas 70.

Mr. Sinha said no relaxation would be allowed in these zones. There had been no case of COVID-19 in eight districts. Meanwhile, 37 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours. The total number of active cases had increased to 572. Over 1,900 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the number to 16,525.

In another development, the Health Department transferred the Superintendent of the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital after certain notifications were made public where it was stated that COVID-19 positive should not be mentioned in the circular.

The Chief Secretary said he was not the one who issued orders of such transfers. They were done by respective departments, he added.