Bengal has highest death rate: Centre

New Delhi: West Bengal has the highest rate of COVID-19 fatalities, low testing and worrying instances of attacks on frontline workers fighting the coronavirus crisis, the Union Home Ministry said on Wednesday in a sharply-worded letter to the Mamata Banerjee-led state government.

"The response to COVID-19 in the state of West Bengal is characterised by a very low rate of testing in proportion to the population, and a very high rate of mortality of 13.2 per cent for the state, by far the highest for any state," the central government said.

"This is a reflection of poor surveillance, detection and testing in the state. There is also a need to increase random testing in crowded clusters," Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said in a two-page letter to West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha.