BHUBANESWAR: New Covid cases in the State dropped below 500 for the first time in last five months on Monday, September 13, 2021. The State reported 471 new cases and six deaths in last 24 hours taking the tally to 10,16,833 and death toll to 8104. The new cases were reported from 21 out of 30 districts and among the new patients, 57 were children and adolescents below 18 years.
Odisha had been constantly reporting below 1,000 cases for last over a week. The number of tests dropped to 50,782 from a range of 70,000 a few days back. While the RT-PCR tests came down to around 15,000 from over 20,000, there was not a single RT-PCR test in Boudh and Kalahandi.
Coastal districts accounted for about 70 per cent (pc) of the new cases. Khurda district reported the highest 196 new cases followed by Cuttack (81) and Balasore (26). Of the six deaths, three were from Khurda district, one each from Angul, Jajpur and Puri. The test positivity rate stood at 0.93 pc.
Health officials attributed the dip in testing to the Ganesh puja and Nuakhai vacations. “The districts have been asked to maintain the 70,000 testing range including over 20,000 RT-PCR tests till the end of October,” Director of Public Health Dr Niranjan Mishra said.