Odisha's Covid-19 tally jumps to 116,678 with over 3,200 fresh cases

Odisha's COVID-19 tally mounted to 1,16,678 on Friday with 3,267 people, including an MP and two MLAs of the ruling BJD, testing positive, a health department official said.

Nine more fatalities pushed the state's coronavirus death toll to 531, he said.

The state also registered the recovery of 2,980 patients taking the total number of people cured of the infection to 90,331, which is 77.41 per cent of the state's total caseload, the official said.

He also said that the COVID-19 fatality rate has come down to 0.45 per cent from 0.46 per cent on Thursday.

Friday's deaths were reported from five districts. While Bolangir, Cuttack, Ganjam and Khurda registered two deaths each, one patient succumbed to the virus in Rayagada.

Ganjam district has so far accounted for 199 deaths, followed by Khurda (72).

Of the fresh cases, 1,961 were reported from quarantine centres, and 1,306 people tested positive during contact-tracing, the official said.

Khurda district topped the list of new cases with 859 infections, followed by Cuttack (384) and Puri (235).

Odisha now has 25,763 active cases.

Meanwhile, Nabarangpur MP Ramesh Chandra Majhi, Basudevpur MLA Bishnubrata Routray and Jagatsinghpur MLA Prasantya Muduli tested positive for coronavirus infection.

All of them informed people of their COVID-19 status through social media and asked those who came in contact with them recently to exercise precaution.

Altogether 21 lawmakers - 18 MLAs and three MPs of Odisha have now got infected with the virus. The MLAs include three ministers.

The state has so far tested over 19.97 lakh samples for COVID-19, including 46,754 on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the state witnessed a surge in COVID cases in the districts of Khurda, Cuttack, Mayurbhanj, Bargarh and Puri while there has been a decline in cases in Ganjam district, an official said.

Keeping this in view, the state government on Friday decided to set up new dedicated COVID hospitals besides upgrading facilities in the existing COVID hospital in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Koraput.