Kolkata, Oct 31 (PTI) The number of fresh coronavirus cases in West Bengal marginally declined on Sunday with the state recording 914 new infections, 66 less than the previous day's figure, a health department bulletin said.

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Of the COVID-19 cases registered in the last 24 hours, Kolkata recorded the highest with 274, followed by neighbouring North 24 Parganas district with 144, the bulletin said.

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The respective figures were 272 and 148 on Saturday.

Apart from Kolkata and North 24 Parganas, the majority of the cases were recorded in adjoining districts of South 24 Parganas (75), Howrah (73) and Hooghly (58), according to the bulletin.

The state recorded 15 fresh Covid fatalities on Sunday, two more than the previous day, with the metropolis and North 24 Parganas districts accounting for six deaths each.

The coronavirus death toll is now 9,141, and the caseload is 15,92,908, the bulletin said.

To keep itself ready to "combat a probable third surge of Covid-19 cases", the state government has ordered the setting up of additional Covid wards at different medical colleges, super speciality hospitals and some district and local-level state-run hospitals.

It has directed the setting up of 100-bed pre-fabricated wards at 18 medical colleges hospitals, super speciality hospitals, district hospitals and sub-divisional hospitals across the state at Rs 7.50 crore per unit.

It has also ordered the setting up of 10 such wards with 20 beds each at the rural and block primary health centre levels at Rs 35 lakhs per unit.

Apart from these, one pre-fabricated Covid ward of 50 beds will also be set up at Jhalda sub-divisional hospital in Purulia at a cost of Rs 3.50 crore.

The positivity rate decreased to 1.93 per cent from 2.08 per cent on Saturday as the number of daily tests increased slightly from 47,131 to 47,417, it said.

The number of active cases came down slightly to 8,296 from 8,310 the previous day, according to the data released by the health department.

So far, 15,65,471 patients recovered from coronavirus in West Bengal.

A total of 1,92,28,303 samples have been tested in West Bengal so far, the bulletin said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)