COVID-19: Odisha's recovery rate nears 96 per cent; schools to remain shut till December 31

The state also registered recovery of 1,641 coronavirus patients taking the total number of cured people to 2,85,174, which is 95.44 per cent of the total caseload.
For representational purposes (Photo | EPS)
For representational purposes (Photo | EPS)

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha's COVID-19 tally on Friday rose to 2,98,768, with 1,494 more people testing positive for the infection, while 15 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 1,393, a health department official said.

The state also registered recovery of 1,641 coronavirus patients taking the total number of cured people to 2,85,174, which is 95.44 per cent of the total caseload.

Odisha currently has 12,148 active patients, the official said.

Of the 1,494 new cases reported from all the 30 districts, 867 were from quarantine centres, and the rest detected during contact tracing.

Khurda district, of which the state capital Bhubaneswar is a part, reported the maximum number of fresh cases at 153, followed by Cuttack at 112 and Balasore at 102, the official said.

Of the fresh fatalities, three each were reported from Khurda and Sambalpur districts, and two each from Mayurbhanj and Bargarh.

The five other deaths were registered in Cuttack, Malkangiri, Bolangir, Puri and Balasore districts.

Khurda has accounted for the highest number of fatalities so far at 242, followed by Ganjam at 231 and Cuttack at 116.

Fifty-three COVID-19 patients have died due to pre-existing ailments.

More than 48.38 lakh sample tests have been conducted so far, the official said.

Of the 51,098 tests conducted on Thursday, 6,395 were RT-PCR tests while 44,510 samples were examined under the Antigen method.

The remaining 193 samples were tested under Truenat process, the official said.

The positivity rate in the state stands at 6.18 per cent.

Meanwhile, Apprehensive that a possible second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic may hit the country mid-December, the Odisha government on Friday decided to keep schools across the state closed till December 31.

The School and Mass Education (S&ME) department in a notification said: "the state government does hereby direct that all schools in the state shall remain closed till 31 December, 2020."

S&ME secretary Satyabrata Sahoo said the department held consultations with various stakeholders and their inputs were taken.

He also said the experience of the states where schools had reopened was taken before taking the decision to keep schools closed till December 31.

Sahoo said that the second wave of COVID-19 cases being experienced in some states, was also noted.

However, notwithstanding closure of academic institutions, the S&ME department in the notification permitted conduct of examinations (academic competitive and entrance tests), evaluation and other administrative activities.

It also said that online distance learning will be permitted and encouraged.

Teaching and non-teaching staff may be called to the schools for online teaching/ tele-counselling and related work, in areas outside the containment zones as per Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW), the notification said.

Earlier in the day, the S&ME minister Samir Ranjan Dash said that the state will not open schools for the students of class 8 to 12 from November 15 as decided earlier.

He said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has recently cautioned about a possible second wave in the second half of December.

Therefore, the department refrained from opening the school from November 15.

Dash, however, said that the department had already worked out a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for reopening the schools, but the pandemic situation does not favour campus activities.

The state government, as part its Unlock 6.0 guidelines announced on October 31, had said schools would be allowed to resume activities after November 15 for students of Classes 9 to 12, in a graded manner.

The move to reverse the decision came after it was found that hundreds of students and teachers in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, where classes for senior school students began on November 2, have contracted the viral disease.

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