State power minister, Covid positive, to be discharged from hospital, home isolation to continue

West Bengal power minister Aroop Biswas will be discharged from hospital on Tuesday. He was admitted to a private hospital in Kolkata after he tested positive for COVID-19. All his health parameters have improved and he is doing fine, the reason why doctors decided to discharge him from hospital. However, he has to remain in home isolation for some time and will be under doctors’ supervision for a while.

Last week, BCCI president and former Indian cricket team skipper Saurav Ganguly had tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to the same hospital. There has been a huge spike in COVID-19 cases, and to deal with the situation the state government has imposed several restrictions. Schools, colleges and other educational institutions have been shut down, and there are restrictions for markets, shopping malls, running of trains and so on. Two of the government’s programmes have been cancelled.

All this has been adopted after Kolkata recorded a COVID-19 positivity rate of 17.88 per cent during December 24-31, the highest for any district in the country during the period. Kolkata’s adjoining district of Howrah also recorded high positivity rate at 7.45 per cent.

The number of new cases in Bengal on January 3 was 6,153, and it was 4,512 new cases the day before. On December 31, the number of new cases was 3,451, and on December 30, the number of new cases was 2,128. This huge surge has made the state government impose several restrictions.