West Bengal on Wednesday recorded a drop in infections and deaths in the past 24 hours as suburban services resumed in Kolkata and adjoining districts after seven months across three Railway divisions. From the morning hours, the suburban trains witnessed a jam-packed crowd across Howrah, Sealdah and Kharagpur Divisions.
The Eastern Railway has decided to operate 413 trains in the Sealdah division and 202 in the Howrah division from Wednesday. 81 trains were run in the Kharagpur division of the S.E. Railways taking the total to 696.
In certain stations, crowding could be seen outside the ticket counters but passengers expressed happiness over the resumption of the services. Some passengers, however, demanded that more trains should be run in the peak hours. Eastern Railway officials said they are running 84% of trains in the peak hours. People were seen wearing masks and following norms of social distancing. The Eastern and the S.E. Railway authorities asked passengers to conform to COVID-19 safety protocols and made wearing of face masks mandatory for travel or entering station premises.
The State recorded 3,872 cases of COVID-19 infections taking the total to 4,16,984. It recorded 49 deaths taking the toll to 7,452. This is the first time in the past several days that the average deaths due to COVID-19 have fallen below 50.
The active cases dropped to 32,836 and the discharge rate increased to 90.34%. The percentage of positive cases out of samples tested increased to 8.26%.