BHUBANESWAR: Odisha on Thursday witnessed its highest single-day spike in both new infections and deaths as 4,340 persons tested positive and 16 patients succumbed to Covid-19, taking the tally to 1,96,888 and death toll to 805.The State has been adding more than 4,000 cases for the last nine days in a row. The last highest of 4,330 cases in a 24-hour period were registered on September 19.
More than 100 new cases were reported from 17 districts with three high burden districts Khurda, Cuttack and Puri continuing to be on top accounting for over 32 per cent (pc) of the total daily count. While Khurda recorded 653 cases, Cuttack and Puri have 567 and 203 cases respectively.
Apart from the three districts, the infection is spreading fast in 15 other districts spread across the coastal, central and western Odisha regions. The districts are Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Jharsuguda , Balasore, Angul, Kandhamal , Nabarangpur, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Sonepur, Mayurbhanj, Kendrapara, Bargarh, Bhadrak and Nuapada. Barring Nuapada, 14 other districts recorded 100 plus cases in last 24 hours.
An analysis indicated that Khurda, Cuttack and Puri have registered 16,025, 9,765 and 5,438 cases respectively so far this month while 11 other districts have recorded over 2,000 cases with Jajpur accounting for 3,628 cases, Mayurbhanj (3,542), Bargarh (3,483) and Balasore (3,076).
Meanwhile, 16 patients from eight districts, including five from Khurda, four from Puri, two from Kendrapara and one each from Rayagada, Sonepur, Nayagarh, Balangir, Mayurbhanj succumbed to the
disease.
The deceased, including a woman, were aged between 39 and 82. While nine among them had comorbidities, seven others, aged between 54 and 70 died of Covid-19. The daily positivity rate came down to 8.5 pc as the testing was enhanced to over 50,000 from a range of 45,000.
The recovery has, however, been encouraging as 3,779 more patients recovered on the day. There are 35,039 active cases, of which over 70 pc are in home isolation. So far, 1,61,044 patients have recovered in the State.