After three months, West Bengal witnesses Covid death

Bengal recorded its first COVID-19 fatality in over three months on Saturday when a 72-year-old man passed away at the Beliaghata ID Hospital. Gobindo Kundu, who had several comorbidities including COPD and high blood pressure, was hospitalized at AMRI Hospital in Salt Lake City four days ago. On Friday night, he was moved to the ID hospital while receiving bipap support. Despite efforts by a team of doctors to save him, he could not be saved.

Bengal has not recorded a COVID-19 fatality in over three months, the longest period since the pandemic began in March 2020. At the end of January, the state health department stopped publishing COVID data because the number of cases had dropped to single digits since December. During the third COVID wave in January 2022, the state recorded 855 fatalities, with more than 200 of those occurring in Kolkata. However, since then, the number of fatalities has decreased, with February 2022 seeing a peak of 557 victims.

The number of fatalities continued to fall, reaching double digits in March before tumbling further to single digits in April last year. The state's final COVID death was recorded on December 20. "For a number of months, there haven't been many cases. It is challenging to assert with certainty that no fatality has occurred in the past six months because examinations are also infrequently performed," a professor at a public teaching hospital remarked.