Odisha records highest single-day spike of 8,681 Covid cases, 14 die

The state witnessed a jump of 24% cases from the previous day's tally of 6,998. Of the new cases, 4,948 were in quarantine and 3,733 detected during contact tracing.
The Market Building in Bhubaneswar sealed for 48 hours for violation of Covid-19 norms by BMC in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday | Irfana
The Market Building in Bhubaneswar sealed for 48 hours for violation of Covid-19 norms by BMC in Bhubaneswar on Wednesday | Irfana

BHUBANESWAR: A day after a 16% drop in new infections, Odisha recorded its highest single-day spike with 8,681 people testing positive in the last 24 hours. The disease also claimed 14 lives, the highest on a day so fat this year, during the period.

The state witnessed a jump of 24% cases from the previous day's tally of 6,998. Of the new cases, 4,948 were in quarantine and 3,733 detected during contact tracing.

Khurda district recorded the maximum of 1,408 cases, followed by Sundargarh (745), Cuttack (570), Puri (514), Balangir (459), Bargarh (423), Angul (419), Jharsuguda (411) and Sambalpur (410).

At least 14 more districts, including Nabarangpur, Jajpur, Mayurbhanj, Nuapada, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Nayagarh, Balasore, Rayagada, Keonjhar, Gajapati, Koraput, Bhadrak and Deogarh registered more than 100 fresh cases.

As many as 45,452 tests, including 18,703 through RT-PCR, were conducted in the last 24 hours. The test positivity (TPR) rate once again crossed 19% with many western Odisha districts recording above 30% TPR. With this, the Covid tally mounted to 4,44,194 in the state. The active cases now stand at 61,698.

Health department sources said, 14 patients fell to Covid while undergoing treatment taking the cumulative death toll to 2043. Three patients each in Koraput and Sundargarh, two each in Khurda and Rayagada, one each in Ganjam, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, and Sambalpur succumbed to the disease.

The Health and Family Welfare Department on Friday urged the people not to panic and unnecessarily crowd the Covid hospitals. Additional Chief Secretary PK Mohapatra said asymptomatics and patients with mild symptoms can remain in home isolation.

“Hospitalisation is not required for all patients. Hospital beds should be kept ready for the needy and critical patients with comorbidities. The state has around 89% patients who are recuperating at home with the medical supervision of rapid response teams,” he said.

As many as 5271 patients are in hospitals now and among them, 1426 are in ICUs and 270 on ventilators. The state has so far set up 11,227 beds, including 2063 in ICUs, and 701 ventilators apart from 40,000 beds with oxygen supply in Covid Care Centres (CCCs).

In terms of oxygen availability, Mohapatra said the state has a capacity of storing 130 metric tonne oxygen in cylinders besides the per day generation capacity of 375 metric tonnes liquid medical oxygen. The consumption was around 45 metric tonnes per day.

The Health department ACS urged people to make way for second dose vaccination of 45 plus age group as the state is facing acute shortage of Covishield vaccine. It has a stock of around one lakh doses against the requirement of 6.3 lakh doses.

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