Odisha alerts districts on possible spike of coronavirus cases

Apprehending a possible spike in COVID-19 cases in Odisha along the lines in Maharashtra, the Naveen Patnaik government Friday asked all district authorities to strictly implement pandemic appropriate behaviour even as the state reported a significant drop in the daily new positive cases.

The state government put all the districts, commissioners of different municipal corporations, the police commissioners of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack and others to remain vigilant about the possible spike of COVID-19 cases.

Additional chief secretary to the health and family welfare department, P K Mohapatra said that there has been a surge of COVID-19 positive cases across some states and it is quite possible that such a situation may arise in Odisha too unless adequate precautions are taken.

You are therefore directed to ensure strict enforcement of COVID-19 Appropriate Behaviour in your district/city to prevent any spike in cases. Adequate testing levels should be maintained as per guidelines, he said in a letter.

Special care should be taken to ensure that these measures are implemented in crowded places such as markets, religious institutions and others, the letter said.

There should not be any deviation in implementing the instructions, it added.

The state on the other hand recorded significant fall in the daily new positive cases, a health department official said.

The state had reported 63 new cases on Thursday.

Odisha's COVID-19 tally is 3,36,513 after 53 people tested positive for the virus on Friday, while one more fatality pushed the death toll to 1,914, he said.

The state also registered recovery of 92 patients taking the number of cured persons to 3,33,980, which is 99.24 per cent of the caseload.

Odishas case fatality rate (CFR) stands at 0.56 per cent, while the states positivity rate ius 4.14per cent.

Of the new cases, 31 were reported from various quarantine centres and the remaining are local-contact infections.

"Regret to inform the demise of 74-year-old male Covid positive patient of Bhubaneswar..." the Health and Family Welfare Department tweeted.

A total of 53 other COVID-19 patients have died due to comorbidities, the official said.

A total of 1,914 fatalities have been reported so far, the official said adding Khurda district accounted for 337 deaths, followed by Ganjam (248), Sundergarh (173), Cuttack (142) and Puri (117).

Odisha now has 566 active cases, which is 0,16 per cent of the caseload.

The state has conducted over 81.23 lakh sample tests for COVID-19, including 22,486 on Thursday, the official added.