BHUBANESWAR: Odisha's daily infection count breached the 4,500 mark with 4,714 new COVID-19 cases reported in the last 24 hours, 28 per cent more than the previous day. The new cases were detected from 70,200 samples tested during the period.
Officials of Health and Family Welfare department said the new daily case count is the highest single-day spike in the last six months. They said that the fresh spike has pushed the daily positivity rate (TPR) of the State to 6.72 per cent on Sunday from 5.15 on Saturday.
The cases include 416 children in 0 to 18 age group. As per Health department statistics, most of the cases were reported from Khurda, Sundargarh, Sambalpur and Cuttack. While a whopping 1,619 cases were reported from Khurda, the worst affected district in the State, the daily caseload remained 662 in Sundargarh, 437 in Sambalpur and 360 in Cuttack.
Besides, the number of confirmed infections also remained above 100 in Jharsuguda, Balasore, Puri and Mayurbhanj districts. However, the toll stood at 8,468 as no deaths were reported on the day. On the other hand, the spike in daily infection count has led to alarming surge in active cases across the State.
The State's active case tally has jumped to a whopping 15,731 on Sunday from 1,593 on January 1. Khurda which is in red zone has 5,563 active cases followed by 2,191 in Sundargarh, 1,279 in Sambalpur and 1,149 in Cuttack.
Malkangiri has the lowest 10 active cases. Director of Health Services Bijay Mohapatra said it would be difficult to ascertain when there will be a break in the rising COVID graph.