BHUBANESWAR: Amid the fear of Omicron spread, Odisha recorded a steep rise in new infection, which went up by around 97 per cent (pc) in the last three days. The number of fresh cases rose to 221 in last 24 hours from 112 on December 25.
Of the fresh cases, including 34 of 0-18 years age group, 129 were from quarantine and 92 local contacts. The new cases crossed the 200-mark after nearly a fortnight. The infection trend was on the decline after the State reported 218 cases on December 14.
With 98 cases, Khurda continued to be the major contributor to the caseload, followed by 21 from Sambalpur and 15 from Cuttack. The cases almost doubled in Khurda and Sambalpur witnessed a seven-fold rise during the three-day period.
The test positivity rate stood at 0.3 pc as 63,290 tests, including 23,463 through RT-PCR were conducted. The positivity rate in Khurda, however, went up to 1.57 pc from around 0.5 pc a few days back.
One more foreign returnee was found infected with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 in the State on Wednesday. The 31-year-old man of Keonjhar district had recently returned from UAE and was in home isolation.
Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Kumar Mohapatra said he had returned from Dubai on December 16 and travelled to the State from Kolkata with a COVID negative certificate. As per the protocol, he was in home isolation and RT-PCR done again on the eighth day of arrival.
"He was found to be positive for COVID-19 following which his sample was sent to Institute of Life Sciences for sequencing. He is asymptomatic but admitted to a hospital. His parents have tested negative. However, they will undergo the RT-PCR test again after seven days," he said.
With this, Omicron cases rose to nine in the State. The UAE returnee was among the two samples sequenced on Tuesday. So far, 20 foreign returnees have tested positive for COVID. The Health Director said the recent spike in cases was due to a few clusters in Bhubaneswar and Sambalpur. But there is no reason to panic as the hospitalisation is very less.