Kolkata, Apr 28 (IANS): Under attack from various quarters for its management of the Covid 19 pandemic, the West Bengal government on Monday claimed that its performance on various indicators was better than or very close to the national average.

Reeling off statistics to buttress his point, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha told mediapersons that the state's positive confirmation rate (number of positive cases out of the total samples tested) was 5.4 per cent, which is "very very close" to the national average of 5.25 per cent.

So far 12,043 samples have been tested in the state, of which 1,150 were tested since Sunday evening.

Sinha said the recovery rate so far was 18 per cent, which was more than most other states.

With regard to Covid fatalities, while the national average was 3.1 per cent, the figure for the state stood better at 2.6 per cent.

He said the number of isolation beds have jumped over six times from 1,090 to 7969 in the state in around a month. There was only one testing laboratory in the state on March 25, while the figure has gone up to 14 now, and ten more applications were pending with the Central government.

Eight of the 23 districts in the state were Covid free.

The state opposition parties and a section of doctors have been targeting the Mamata Banerjee government for its "mishandling" of the pandemic, and accusing it of "fudging" the death count, besides alleging testing of very low number of samples compared to density of the population.