BHUBANESWAR: A day after the massive spike of 10,413 cases, the highest single-day total since the beginning of the pandemic, the daily Covid count dropped by 23 per cent (pc) as Odisha reported 8,015 new infections in the last 24 hours.Fourteen patients succumbed to the disease during the period. The number of infections remained above 8,000 for four days in the last five days and the test positivity rate in several districts went past 30 pc prompting the State government to impose a 14-day lockdown to block the transmission.
Odisha recorded a whopping 1,13,296 cases and 113 fatalities in April. The highest 1.16 lakh cases were registered in September last year when the infection was at its peak. The active cases have gone up by 28 times from 2,246 cases on April 1 to 67,086 on Saturday. Only 48,323 patients had recovered last month.Khurda and Sundargarh continued to be the worst-hit districts with 1,275 and 7,35 cases respectively. Among other districts, 525 cases were detected in Angul, 482 in Cuttack, 441 in Sambalpur, 390 in Bargarh, 386 in Jharsuguda, 320 in Nabarangpur, 306 in Puri, 264 in Nuapada and 207 in Sonepur.
Sources said at least 15 districts recorded high positivity rate than the State average of 17.2 pc with three posting more than 50 pc. The TPR in Ganjam was the highest at 81.6 pc. Nabarangpur and Kalahandi had a TPR of 58.18 pc and 55 pc with only 550 and 316 tests conducted respectively. The high TPR notwithstanding, testing was low across the State at only 46,560 including nearly 40 pc through RT-PCR. Surprisingly, only three samples from Kalahandi, four from Kandhamal, six from Nuapada and nine from Bhadrak were tested through RT-PCR.
There was no improvement in western Odisha as nine of the 10 districts reported 3,035 cases accounting for 37.8 pc of the daily caseload. In the coastal districts and areas bordering West Bengal, bulk of cases are being reported from Cuttack, Angul, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur, Nayagarh, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Koraput, Gajapati, Boudh, Deogarh and Balasore. The number of new infections was below 100 in only five districts.
With this, the total number of confirmed cases soared to 4,62,662 of which 3,97,575 people have recovered. The disease claimed 14 more lives including four from Rayagada, two from Keonjhar and one each from Khurda, Boudh, Balangir, Bhadrak, Deogarh, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur and Sundargarh taking the cumulative toll to 2,068. The active cases stood at 62,926.