A recent media report published in The Print has said that the recovery rate of coronavirus patients in the State of West Bengal has dipped sharply in the last two weeks with experts unable to figure out the reason for this downhill trend.
The report published on July 15 said: “the Covid-19 recovery rate in West Bengal has gone downhill since the last two weeks, while the rate of infection has been increasing — and all these when the city is facing an acute shortage of beds in both government and private hospitals.”
The report citing State government data said that in the last two weeks (June 30 to July 14), West Bengal’s recovery rate had fallen from 66.48 percent to 60 percent. In Kolkata alone, the government figures indicated that the recovery rate had nosedived from 64 percent to 56 percent.
“The infection rate in the state, meanwhile, has spiked from 3 per cent to 5.14 per cent in the same period. But health officials and doctors are unable to explain the reason behind the fall in the recovery rate, which has now become worrying,” the report said.
“We have formed an expert committee on the treatment protocol. They are visiting hospitals on a regular basis and issuing guidelines. If we cannot improve discharge rate, then retention of Covid-19 beds will also be longer, affecting our hospital space. We are working on this,” a senior State health department official was quoted by the report as saying.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader, Babul Supriyo, was quick to share the report on social media. In the past couple of months, since the first lockdown there had been countless allegations and counter-allegations between the Trinomool Congress-led State government and the BJP government at the Centre on how the COVID-19 situation was being handled in the State and on fudging the numbers of coronavirus deaths.