Five districts report over 2,500 cases, Odisha Covid tally touches 8,914

BHUBANESWAR: The state’s fresh Covid tally touched 8,914 on Monday with five districts each reporting more than 500 new infections on Monday. Cuttack, Puri and Khurda (including Bhubaneswar) have together been adding around 2,000 cases a day for the past few days.
However, for the first time after April 27, the fresh death toll came down to a single digit with five casualties. This has taken the state’s total Covid toll to 2,073. The districts with 500 plus cases are Cuttack (587), Khurda (1,258), Sambalpur (520), Puri (530) and Sundargarh (592).
Puri, Khurda and Cuttack, which are very close to each other, have been witnessing a surge in cases lately. Until April 14, Puri had been reporting cases in single and double digits. It has so far seen 126 patients succumb to the virus and the total Covid count going beyond 20,000. As on Monday, Puri has close to 3,000 active cases. With the exception of Delanga and Krishnaprasad, all other blocks of Puri have reported more than 100 cases.
With Khurda’s total Covid count inching close to 75,000, the three districts have so far reported 1,32,073 cases, which is around one-fourth of the state’s tally till Monday. The southern and northern districts of Ganjam, Gajapati, Balasore and Mayurbhanj are low on the infection count, though they have also been reporting double or triple-digit cases.
Ajay Parida, director, Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) said, “The reason behind Puri, Khurda and Cuttack accounting for the bulk of cases is that they are prominent places because of their religious, administrative and commercial importance. The cross-movement of people is huge as the floating population is more in the three cities. Hopefully, the cases will come down after the lockdown is over.” The state on Monday conducted the tests of 46, 643 samples, out of which 8,914 returned positive, thereby registering a positivity rate of 19.11%.