Odisha records highest single-day COVID deaths

BHUBANESWAR:  Even as new Covid-19 cases are declining for the last few days, Odisha logged its highest single day fatalities with 45 patients succumbing to the disease in last 24 hours. 

As many as 5,896 new cases were detected during the period. Health department sources said Khurda district accounted for six fresh fatalities followed by five each in Cuttack and Kahalandi, four each in Angul, Dhenkanal and Sundargarh, three each in Boudh and Jharsuguda and two each in Bargarh and Rayagada. The toll in the State has now gone up to 3,080 with an overall case fatality ratio (CFR) of 0.37 per cent. 

Although cases have come down in Khurda, the district was back on top once again with maximum 853 cases followed by 413 in Jajpur, 385 in Angul, 373 in Balasore, 370 in Bhadrak and 349 in Cuttack.

The situation in six of the eight districts bordering Chhattisgarh which had emerged as a hotspot during the initial phase of the second wave has improved significantly with Nuapada (37), Kalahandi (53), Jharsuguda (54), Balangir (77), Sambalpur (92) and Bargarh (99) registering less than 100 cases each.

The fresh cases pushed the tally of the State to 8,25,110 of which 7,56,641 including 8,836 on Tuesday have recovered. The State currently has 65,336 active cases and 11,269 of them have been hospitalised including 2,838 in ICUs and 851 on ventilators.

The State had conducted 68,896 tests including 25,330 through RT-PCR bringing down the test positivity rate to 8.5 per cent.

Fifteen districts have more TPR than the State average with Jajpur topping the list at 22.16 per cent. Deogarh, Ganjam, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Nuapada and Sundargarh have lowest TPR of less than three pc.

With the declining infection rate, the projected daily caseload is expected to be less than 3,000 by June 21 and the recovery rate to go up from 90 pc to 96 pc.

Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the State is witnessing at least one per cent decline in infection rate daily and hopefully it will come down to below five per cent in the next one week.

“The focus is on treatment of critical patients, nearly 60 per cent of whom are in serious condition,” he told reporters.