A year after first case, Kolkata sees no death but numbers start rising again

Kolkata: Exactly a year after the city recorded its first Covid-19 positive case on March 17 last year, Kolkata saw no deaths but 96 new cases on Wednesday. Across the state, the number of fresh cases touched the 300-mark on Wednesday, with 303 being reported on the day. The last time Bengal had daily cases in the 300s was on January 30 (310 cases). Since then, there has been a gradual dip till about two weeks ago when the numbers started spiralling again.

There is a growing concern among healthcare professionals about this sudden spurt in fresh cases. They fear a second wave unless preventive measures are taken right away. “There is a resurgence of the virus in states like Kerala and Maharashtra, from where the pandemic had started in the country before it travelled to the eastern parts. With travels opened and mixing of people from one zone to another, ignoring preventive protocol can bring a second wave in about a month or two,” said Anirban Dalui, a public health specialist at Swasthya Bhawan.

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An 18-year-old youth who flew back home in Kolkata from Oxford on March 15 last year was the first Covid positive patient in Kolkata. He had tested positive two days later at the state-run Infectious Diseases and Beliaghata Hospital. The second and the third cases followed soon, with a 22-year-old and a 23-year-old testing positive. While all three had returned from the UK, people who had no travel history started getting the infection subsequently. The city recorded its first Covid death on March 23 when a 57-year-old from Dum Dum died at a private hospital in Salt Lake. The deceased had no travel history. By March-end, the city had recorded three deaths and 27 positive cases.

The positive cases kept multiplying over the next few months with a surge from mid-July onwards. Though figures never touched the kind of soar cities like Mumbai and Delhi saw, Kolkata was struck by a massive spike in October after the Durga Puja. The highest single-day spike in the city was recorded on October 31, when Kolkata reported 931 cases while that of Bengal was 4,157 on October 22.

But the fear of further explosion in numbers started receding gradually from mid-November. After a sustained decline, the number of fresh cases in the city had slid to as low as 33 on February 8 this year, when the state reported only 119 cases. But the recent spike has become a cause of concern for health officials.

“Whether we go into a second wave or not would depend on several factors, including the number of asymptomatically infected who never got tested, speed of vaccination and environmental factors. But we can prevent things from going from bad to worse by not letting our guards down. Adhering to masks and other appropriate behaviour can save us from a fresh spurt,” said Prabhas Prasun Giri, associate professor at the Institute of Child Health.

But with elections around the corner and mass gatherings happening frequently, another surge could be difficult to prevent, health experts feared.

“Though there is a rising trend, we will not be pressing the panic button. But we are definitely alert and are working on how to contain and stop the numbers from multiplying,” said a senior health department official.