BHUBANESWAR: The surge in Covid-19 cases continued in Odisha as 4,356 new cases, the highest single-day spike so far, detected from 30 districts in last 24 hours taking the tally to 2,05,452. Of the new cases, 2,529 were reported from quarantine and 1,827 acquired infections locally. While most of the districts have not shown much of a variation in terms of daily cases, new infection has significantly increased in 15 districts, which have recorded more than 100 cases each.
Though the number in Cuttack dropped from a range of 500 plus to 409, Khurda and Angul witnessed their biggest single-day spike with 902 and 197 cases respectively. Four major districts - Khurda, Cuttack, Angul and Balasore - together accounted for 39 per cent of the daily caseload. The State has, in fact, seen a constant spike in number of coronavirus cases recorded in a single day.
Odisha is among the top 10 states that are areas of concern for the Centre. The State is now recording two times the cases being detected in some of the worst-hit states like Gujarat, Bihar, Haryana, Assam, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana.Though authorities attributed the rise in cases to the accelerated testing, health experts fear that the State may continue this trend for some more days as infection is spreading fast in small towns and the hinterlands.
“There is no denying that the infection is going to newer areas. But it is not spreading in villages to that extent. The outbreak is still restricted to semi-urban areas where the virus actually thrives,” said an official of Health and Family Welfare department.
The State added another 16 deaths in last 24 hours. Among the deceased, four were from Bhubaneswar, three each from Puri and Koraput and one each from Balasore, Balangir, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur and Mayurbhanj. With this, the death toll soared to 836. However, the recovery has been encouraging as the number of recovery was more than that of number of new infections for the second consecutive day on Saturday. The total number of recoveries reached 1,70,193 after 4,761 patients were discharged. The number of active cases now stands at 34,423.
Another dedicated hospital comes up
Another exclusive Covid Hospital with 300 beds and 40 ICU beds has been readied at Bhubaneswar apart from additional 20 ICU beds that have been kept ready at SUM and KIMS Covid Hospitals to strengthen the health infrastructure in order to fight Covid-19.