BHUBANESWAR: Despite reporting less than 200 COVID-19 positive cases for the last two days, the State Capital continues to remain a COVID hotspot.
Of the 183 cases reported in Khurda district in the last 24 hours, 182 were from Bhubaneswar while the remaining one was reported from one of the rural areas. Of the 182 cases reported in the city, around 75 per cent are related to local transmission where the source of infection is not known.
As many as 138 persons in the city contracted the virus locally in the last 24 hours which includes 11 persons from Nayapalli and nine from Patia. The rest 44 persons were in quarantine. The area under the jurisdiction of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) continues to report more than 100 cases of local transmission despite a drastic drop in testing which had come down by 40 per cent last week.
The continuous surge in cases has pushed the COVID-19 tally of the city to 28,481. The death toll due to COVID-19 in Bhubaneswar touched 150 after two more patients succumbed to the virus on Saturday.
However, BMC officials said the recovery rate remained high in their jurisdiction in the recent weeks helping the city bring down its active cases to below 2,500-mark. After 276 patients were discharged, the number of active cases in the city has come down to 2,415.