CUTTACK: After a lull for around five months, Cuttack district entered the yellow zone with the daily test positivity rate (TPR) increasing to 5.7 per cent (pc) on Monday.
Witnessing a surge since the New Year, Cuttack saw the number of active cases rise from just 112 on January 1 to a whopping 1,497 in the last 10 days. The number of daily infections also crossed the 400-mark. Even as local contact cases have been rising every day, the district administration is yet to ramp up testing and contract tracing.
The district on Monday registered 401 fresh Covid cases taking the tally to 97,278. The 401 new cases include 301 from the CMC area and the rest 100 cases are from different rural areas and ULBs of the district. Of the 360 persons who tested positive in Cuttack district on Sunday, 227 cases belong to CMC area and the rest 133 from rural parts. Local contact cases are also surging in both the city and rural areas. While 99 local contact cases were detected from 47 localities in the CMC area on Sunday, 123 were reported from 56 localities of CMC area on Monday.
As far as infection in children is concerned, while 26 children tested positive on Sunday, it was 30 on Monday. At present, around 7,000 samples are tested daily including over 3,000 done through RT-PCR. Health experts, however, opined that if the administration ramps up testing more positive cases will come to fore. As on Monday, while 45 patients are undergoing treatment at Ashwini Covid Hospital, 40 other patients are in SCB Covid hospital.
“Now the hospitalisation rate is in between 1 and 3 per cent of the total positive cases. But if the infection rate increases further, more patients will require hospitalisation. The infection is expected to peak by the first week of February. Hence we are emphasising on readying DCHs and Covic Care Centers to tackle the third wave effectively,” said District Covid Nodal officer Dr. Umesh Ray.