No alarm signals yet in Bengal, but state govt braces for fresh Covid wave

Kolkata, April 9 Although the number of active Covid-19 fresh cases in West Bengal is negligible compared to that in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Maharashtra, the state health department has started taking precautionary measures in case of the arrival of the fourth wave of the virus.

As per the latest figures, the total number of active Covid-19 cases in West Bengal stands at 233, which is just 0.74 per cent of the national figure. During the last 24 hours, active cases in the state increased by 30.

According to health secretary Narayan Swarup Nigam, although there has been only a marginal increase in the number of active cases, precautionary arrangements have been made in all the hospitals in the state to tackle any kind of emergency. "Inspections are being done to ensure that all necessary arrangements are made in all the hospitals," he said.

On March 26, West Bengal reported its first Covid-19 death in the last three months, when Gobindo Kundu (72), a resident of Nadia district, died in a Kolkata hospital. He had comorbidity.

According to Nigam, the affected persons who were hospitalized had all complained of comorbidity. "There is no room for complacency and amid the recent rising Covid-19 graph in the country, the state health department is keeping its infrastructure ready to handle any emergency," he added. The government is also stressing on genome sequencing of the affected persons especially those who have been hospitalised.

Sources in the state government said that a cause of concern is that very few doses of Covid-19 vaccines are in stock currently. Anticipating that there will be a rush among the people to go for booster doses, the health department has sought 5.75 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the Union government five lakh doses of Covishield and 75,000 doses of Covaxin.

A health department official said that a reluctance among the people to go for booster shots was evident because of the decline in the number of active cases in the recent past and hence the health department had to send back a huge stock of doses to the Union government before their expiry. "And now following the rise in the graph again there might be fresh demand for booster doses and hence the state has requested the Union government for a fresh supply of doses," he said.

City-based physician Dr Udipta Roy also stressed on people increasingly going for booster shots. "The dip in the graph in the recent past made people reluctant to take a booster shot. But this rising graph is the first warning sign. So, people on their own should take precautions like using masks in public places and going for booster shots," Roy added.

Meanwhile, another positive development was the declining trend in the last few weeks of children with adenovirus-related symptoms getting admitted to child-care units in the city-based hospitals. The months of January and February witnessed the maximum admission on this count with unofficial estimates quoting the figure to be over 10,000.