21 people who returned to Odisha from Surat test positive for COVID-19

Odisha on Thursday reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases in a day as 21 people, who recently returned from Surat, tested positive for coronavirus, an official said.

With these new cases, the total number of people afflicted with the disease has climbed to 206, he said.

Of the 21 new patients, 17 are from Ganjam district and four from Mayurbhanj, a new one in the list of districts where coronavirus cases have been reported, an official from the Information and Public Relations department said.

"These new patients have recently returned from Surat and are in quarantine centres," the official said.

Following the spurt in COVID-19 cases, the state government declared Ganjam as a red zone while Mayurbhanj and Jagatsinghpur were classified as orange zones.

Jagatsinghpur had reported four cases on Wednesday.

The first case in Ganjam was reported on May 2 and since then, there has been a sudden spurt in the number of cases, the official said.

"All necessary stipulations by the Centre and the state government applicable for different zones in the districts and municipal corporation areas are to be followed scrupulously," Health and Family Welfare department Additional Chief Secretary P K Mohapatra said in a letter to the three district administrations and the commissioner of Berhampur Municipal Corporation.

Nearly three lakh Odia workers mostly from the Ganjam district are engaged in diamond cutting and other works in Gujarat's Surat. They started coming back to the eastern state after the Centre allowed movement of migrant labourers during the ongoing lockdown.

Ganjam district collector V A Kulange said the local administration is taking care of those who have travelled back to the state, and authorised persons have only been allowed to enter into quarantine centres or temporary medical facilities.

Apart from Ganjam, three districts -- Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore, and Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) area in Khurda -- are classified as red zones.

There are 10 orange and 14 green zones in the state.

With 21 more people testing positive for COVID-19, the number of active cases now stands at 142, while 62 people have recovered from the disease. Two persons from Bhubaneswar have died of the infection.

The state government on Wednesday had tested 3,060 samples, the official said.

A total of 50,514 samples have been tested so far in the state, he said.

Jajpur district has reported the maximum number of cases at 55, followed by Bhubaneswar in Khurda district 47, Balasore 25, Bhadrak and Ganjam 21 each, and Sundergarh 12.

Four cases each have been reported from Jagatsinghpur and Mayurbhanj, and three from Kendrapara districts.

Two cases each have been detected in Cuttack, Jharsuguda, Bolangir, Keonjhar and Kalahandi, and one each in Puri, Dhenkanal, Deogarh and Koraput districts.