Odisha reports 4,189 new Covid cases, infection count rises to 188,311

Odisha's COVID-19 tally rose to 1,88,311 on Tuesday as 4,189 more people tested positive for the infection, while 11 fresh fatalities pushed the state's coronavirus death toll to 721, a health official said.

He said that 3,834 patients also recovered from the disease, taking the number of cured people so far to 1,53,213 which is 81.36 per cent of the caseload.

As many as 2,453 new cases were reported in quarantine centres, while 1,736 people tested positive for the infection during contact tracing, he said.

Khurda district, under which Bhubaneswar falls, reported the highest number of new cases at 712, followed by Cuttack (586), Puri (265) and Sundergarh (201), the official said.

Of the fresh fatalities, two each were reported from Balasore, Bolangir, Ganjam and Malkangiri districts and one each in Bhadrak, Khurda and Puri, he said.

Ganjam district has so far reported the highest number of coronavirus deaths at 218, followed by Khurda (106) and Cuttack (59), the official said.

Fifty-three COVID-19 patients have died due to other ailments so far, he said.

Odisha now has 34,324 active cases.

The state has so far tested over 28.60 lakh samples for COVID-19, including 45,676 on Monday.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik congratulated nonagenarians Satchidananda Mohanty and Dhirendranath Das on winning the battle against COVID-19.

"Their win shall enthuse Covid Warriors and boost morale of COVID-19 patients to stay strong to defeat Coronavirus," Patnaik said in a statement.

The chief minister also expressed happiness that Ganjam saw a turnaround from a high caseload district to a model one with robust healthcare, door-to-door surveillance and decentralised COVID-19 management.

"Intensive testing, tracking and treatment helped bend the curve downward," he said.

The state government asked all the COVID-19 facilities, both government and private, to set up round the clock help desks to provide health reports of coronavirus patients undergoing treatment to their relatives.