Zero Covid cases in Kolkata hospitals

A number of private hospitals in Kolkata have had no Covid patients in the past week. At some of these hospitals, not a single Covid test turned out to be positive during the period, officials said.

But public health experts warn it is too early to drop guard.

A bulletin issued by the state health department said Bengal recorded 65 new Covid cases on Wednesday. The day’s test positivity rate was 0.34 per cent.

The three units of AMRI Hospitals — in Dhakuria, Mukundapur and Salt Lake — did not have a single Covid patient in the wards in the past week.

“We had zero Covid patients for the last week. Now only a few doctors — who are performing surgeries in which exposure to aerosol is maximum, such as ENT cases — are wearing PPE suits. Otherwise, doctors and others are not wearing PPE at the three hospitals,” said Rupak Barua, group CEO of AMRI.

Belle Vue Clinic has had no Covid patient admitted since March 8.

“We have been performing about 25 Covid tests every day on an average at our hospital in the past week. None has returned positive,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue.

Peerless Hospital and Medica Superspecialty Hospital, too, have zero Covid patients. “We have been having zero Covid patients since a patient was discharged on Tuesday. This is the first time we have had zero Covid patients since the first patient was admitted on March 23, 2020,” said Sudipta Mitra, chief executive of the hospital.

At Fortis Hospital, Anandapur, the last Covid patient was discharged three days ago.

“We have a six-bed Covid ward with two additional ICU beds. We intend to shut them down at the end of this week if there are no more patients,” said Pratyush Srivastava, zonal director, Fortis Hospital, Kolkata.

The RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences had two Covid patients on Wednesday, who were admitted nearly a week back.

“Since then, there has been no admission. Once these two patients are discharged, we’ll shut down the Covid unit for the time being if there are no new admissions,” said R. Venkatesh, regional director, east, Narayana Health, which runs the Mukundapur hospital.

All 250-odd RT-PCR tests for Covid that were conducted at the hospital in the past week came back negative, Venkatesh said.

MR Bangur Superspeciality Hospital had six Covid patients on Wednesday, all of whom were in the critical care unit. “They are all above 70 and have comorbidities,” said an official of the hospital.

Public health experts said it was too early to drop guard.

“We have to keep in mind that Covid cases are rising in China and several countries in Europe. It is too early to say Covid is gone. One should continue to wear masks and take vaccine,” said public health expert Abhijit Chowdhury. Telegraph India