BHUBANESWAR: Several hospitals in the state capital are in the grip of Covid third wave as the new cases jumped 10,000-mark for the second consecutive day on Friday. The state recorded 10,273 infections and four deaths in last 24 hours.
AIIMS-Bhubaneswar and Capital Hospital have been struggling to provide healthcare as more and more doctors and paramedics in the two major government health facilities in the city have tested positive recently.
Sources said 136 employees of AIIMS including 38 healthcare workers and doctors, and more than 30 staff, including 10 doctors in Capital Hospital have been found infected. They are in isolation. The hospital has already stopped all elective surgeries and restricted OPD services. Patients have been advised to go for teleconsultation if there is no emergency.
AIIMS Superintendent Dr. Sachidananda Mohanty said the decision to restrict OPD services was taken following the rise in Covid infection among healthcare workers. “The admission of Covid-19 positive cases has gradually increased. We have taken some preventive measures for the smooth functioning of the hospital. We are getting ready with Covid OT, Labour OT and other Covid areas,” he added.
Among the fresh cases, a whopping 1,065 were from 0 to 18 years of age group. As many as 10,059 cases, including 872 children below 18 years, and three deaths were reported on Thursday. Odisha was among the top-nine states/UTs that have been driving the country’s caseload. The coastal state has been registering more cases than Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and poll-bound Punjab.
Nine districts accounted for nearly 72 per cent (pc) of the caseload with Khurda topping the list at 3,496 cases followed by Sundargarh (1049), Cuttack (844), Sambalpur (529), Balasore (457), Mayurbhanj (340), Puri (269), Kalahandi (203) and Jharsuguda (202).
As the testing dropped by nearly eight pc as compared to the previous day, the test positivity rate soared to 13.5 pc. A total 75,731 tests were conducted including 32,188 RT-PCR tests during the 24-hour period.
The TPR was 27.1 pc in Khurda, 18.6 pc in Sundargarh, 16.8 pc in Sambalpur, 15 pc in Kalahandi, 13.6 pc in Cuttack, 13.5 pc each in Puri and Balasore and 12.7 pc in Mayurbhanj.
With this, the tally soared to 11,11,879 and death toll to 8,476. The active cases crossed the 50,000-mark after seven months and it rose to 50,955 after the recovery of 2,216 patients.