Amid fourth wave fears, West Bengal reports 17 new Covid-19 cases

There were no deaths due to the Covid-19 disease across West Bengal and the toll remained at 21,200.

Kolkata: On a day when the country witnessed a jump of around 90 per cent in daily COVID-19 cases, the scenario in West Bengal continued to improve with only 17 new cases detected in the last 24 hours, the health department said on Monday.

The case load was now 20,17,823, it said. There were no deaths due to the disease and the toll remained at 21,200. There were 38 recoveries pushing the number of such people to 19,96,333, the department said.

The discharge rate remained at 98.93 per cent. The number of active cases accordingly improved to 290, it said. Since Sunday, Bengal tested 5,682 samples taking the total number of such clinical examinations to 24,937,513, it added.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal Health Regulatory Commission on Monday directed hospitals to provide patients with purified drinking water free of cost.

WBHRC chairman, Justice Asim Kumar Bandyopadhyay said that hospitals had been charging patients for drinking water even if they were in a critical care unit or in a coma stage. "From now on the price of water will not be taken. Money can be taken only if a patient wants mineral water from a particular company," he said. 

The Commission also withdrew its old recommendation to all hospitals to maintain bed charges as per the rate it had fixed on March 1, 2020.

"Since everything is being restored to normalcy, hospital authorities can hike bed charges. But they will not be allowed to increase it more than once a year. And the charges should never be more than 10 per cent," Justice Bandyopadhyay said.