Odisha adds 2,854 new Covid cases, total deaths cross 1,000

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha on Saturday became the 16th state/UT to have reported more than 1,000 deaths due to Covid-19, after 15 more people succumbed to the viral infection in 24 hours. The state’s death toll rose to 1,006.
Odisha added 2,854 new virus cases in 24 hours, pushing the case load to 2,49,693.
While Maharashtra has reported the highest deaths — more than 39,000 — Tamil Nadu has lost more than 10,000 people to the virus. Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and West Bengal have recorded between 5,000 and 10,000 deaths, while Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana and Chhattisgarh have registered between 1,000 and 5,000 deaths.
While there has been a steady fall in the number of new infections, there has been no corresponding fall in the number of daily deaths, which has been around 15 since mid-September.
Jayant Panda, the government’s technical adviser on Covid-19, said the deaths being reported now were a reflection of the complications during the peak period in September, when the state reported an average of more than 4,000 new infections daily. Since the new infections have declined over the past some days, deaths, too, should start falling in a week’s time, he said.
The new deaths reported on Saturday include five from Khurda, two from Cuttack and one each from Balasore, Balangir, Ganjam, Jagatsingpur, Jajpur, Kendrapada, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh.