Drop in cases: Pvt hospitals start freeing-up Covid units
KOLKATA: With a significant drop in Covid positivity rate of the state in the past few days, various private hospitals have started the process of freeingup their Covid units.
State Health experts had earlier hinted that the daily Covid infection may go down from the end of July.
The experts also opined that Covid surge this time would remain much lower compared to the daily Covid infections, which were registered during the peaks of the third wave. Covid positivity has dropped to around 8 per cent from what stood at around 18 per cent in the previous week.
According to sources, many private hospitals in the city are going to close their Covid units within the next week as occupancy has dropped since mid-July.
Many private hospitals have started the process of reducing their Covid beds.
The number of fresh cases in Bengal has been on a decline since July 19, when 2,243 cases were recorded.
On Friday, the state saw 1,284 new cases while on Thursday the daily figure stood at 1,495.
Daily positivity rate stood at 10.4 per cent on July 28 from what was recorded at around 21.2 per cent on July 11 - the highest during the current surge.
A top private hospital group in Kolkata now has around 40 Covid patients across its three units and it has therefore decided to convert half of its existing Covid beds to nonCovid beds from next Monday.
The hospital now has 120 Covid beds. A private hospital in south Kolkata has also started freeing its existing 28-bed Covid unit.
Covid positivity has dropped to around 8 per cent from what stood at around 18 per cent in the previous week