Odisha battles sharp fluctuation in new COVID-19 cases, rise in fatalities

BHUBANESWAR :  Even as Odisha returned to a complete lockdown for 14 days from Wednesday, a steady increase in fatalities and drastic fluctuation in the number of new infections have left health experts confused. A day after slight drop on Tuesday, fresh infections again  rose by nearly 20 per cent (pc) with 9,889 people testing positive for the virus and 16 more succumbing to the disease in last 24 hours. The test positivity rate (TPR) also shot up to 20.5 pc from 18.8 pc.

An analysis of new cases and deaths for the past eight days ever since the State started reporting over 8,000 cases a day revealed that at an average of 8,689 cases and 12 deaths a day, Odisha has recorded 69,512 cases and 97 fatalities. As many as 3,64,365 tests have been conducted during the period with an average 45,545 tests a day and TPR of 19 pc.

The sharp fluctuation in cases has been witnessed between April 28 and 29 when the infections dropped from 8,386 to 6,998 (despite 2,000 more tests) and the next day (on April 30) the number of cases again rose to 8,681 (with an addition of around 1,000 more samples). The graph got steeper on May 1 when 10,413 cases were reported, so far the highest single day spike. The difference of cases was 1,732 with around 2,000 more tests than the previous day.

Surprisingly, the number of cases fell to 8,015 on May 2 with a difference of less than 1,000 tests. While 47,462 tests were conducted on May 1, 46,560 tests conducted on May 2. The number is currently high in most of the western Odisha districts besides Khurda, Cuttack, Puri, Angul and northern districts like Balasore, Jajpur, Bhadrak and Mayurbhanj, but the cases have been going up and down in the past few days. Raising doubts over the sharp fluctuation in cases, health experts said the numbers being made public today may not be of the same day and the State may be reporting cases a day or two late. There may be some backlog RT-PCR or antigen reports which are being released in a gap of one or two days, they said.

Odisha battles sharp fluctuation in new cases, rise in fatalities

Senior microbiologist and former ICMR member Dr Tribhuban Mohan Mohapatra said given the low testing numbers despite the high TPR, it is difficult to assess the extent of infection especially when the priority is on testing the symptomatic people. “There may be many more asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic people who are skipping tests due to lack of aggressive testing protocol. Odisha should test at least double the number it is testing today,” he said.

While delayed treatment at dedicated Covid hospitals, late response from the RRTs and unavailability of drugs like Remdesivir and Tocilizumab at private hospitals leading to severity in moderate case have been cited as reasons behind rising deaths, health officials claimed that the fatalities in the State are one of the lowest and within the limit.

Director of Health Services Dr Bijay Mohapatra said the districts are testing as per the target and the RT-PCR tests in some districts were low due to breakdown of machines. He, however, insisted that there was no delay in treatment of patients, rather in many cases patients are presenting late. “Every pandemic has some percentage of mortality,” he stated.