Covid-19 pandemic: Odisha reports 5,901 new cases, 8 fresh fatalities

Odisha's COVID-19 tally rose to 12,31,169 on Thursday as 5,901 people tested positive for the infection, 1,515 less than the previous day, a health bulletin said.

Eight more people succumbed to the infection, pushing the state's coronavirus death toll to 8,550, it said.

The test positivity rate (TPR) dipped to 9.34 per cent as 63,209 samples were examined in the last 24 hours. The infections dropped by 43 per cent from 10,368 a week ago. The state had logged 7,416 cases and 10 deaths on Wednesday.

Khurda district reported the highest number of 1,430 cases, followed by 545 in Sundargarh and 402 in Cuttack. The TPR was 27.4 per cent in Sundargarh and 20.9 in Khurda. Twenty-two more districts have a positivity of more than 5 per cent.

Three deaths were registered in Sundargarh, and one each in Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Keonjhar, Koraput and Rayagada. Fifty-three COVID-19 patients have died due to comorbidities so far, it said.

At least 10,078 more patients recuperated from the disease, taking the recoveries to 11,52,239. As many as 739 children are among those newly infected.

The active cases dipped to 70,327, including 25,186 in Khurda, which is in the red zone with Sundargarh, Cuttack and Balasore. The districts where the number of present infections is over 2,500 are in this category.

Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra sounded a note of caution even as the cases were in a declining trend.

He said that nearly all the scientists who were conducting genome sequencing at the Institute of Life Science in Bhubaneswar have contracted the disease.

Therefore, no new data regarding the number of Omicron cases is available, the official said.

He underscored that the state might have crossed the peak of the third wave, but countries had "witnessed fourth and fifth waves too".

"Hence, we have to monitor the situation closely till the daily cases come to the baseline," the official added.