Odisha reports 10,000 plus cases; high TPR concern 

BHUBANESWAR :  Keeping pace with the national trend, Odisha recorded its highest single-day spike of 10,521 new Covid-19 cases and 17 fatalities pushing the tally to over five lakh and toll to 2,121. This is the second time that the State has reported over 10,000 cases in 24 hours with a test positivity rate (TPR) of 21.7 per cent (pc) as around 48,314 tests were conducted during the period. As many as 10,413 cases were detected on April 30. With highest 61.3 pc, the TPR is alarming at Sambalpur, followed by 59.12 pc at Sundargarh and 37.8 pc at Boudh. 

Odisha reports 10K plus cases; high TPR concern 

The share of RT-PCR was only 2.5 pc in Dhenkanal, 5.8 pc in Balangir and 9.3 pc in Puri. Odisha is among the 12 states, which are now contributing significantly to the national tally with a high positivity rate. As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the TPR in the State was 23 pc between April 26 and May 2. 

As per data compiled by ICMR, 16 states have more than 20 pc TPR and the rate in Odisha is higher than that of Kerala (22 pc), Himachal Pradesh (20 pc), Tamil Nadu (19 pc), Bihar (18 pc), Punjab (17 pc) and Jharkhand (16 pc). The alarming TPR notwithstanding, the number of overall testing and the share of RT-PCR continued to remain much lower in Odisha than many other states. Despite clear instruction from the Centre to test at least 70 pc of the samples through RT-PCR, it has never crossed 40 pc. 

Apart from low testing, alleged data fudging by the Health directorate in terms of positive cases has come to fore. As per testing reports compiled by district officials of Keonjhar, as many as 287 people had tested positive on April 27. But surprisingly, the State government announced only 175 cases the next day. While the sharp fluctuation in number of cases indicates ‘data management’ at some level, health authorities refuted the allegations. Additional Chief Secretary of Health, PK Mohapatra said the directorate is sharing the number of cases received from the districts. 

Of the 10,521 fresh cases, 5,945 were in quarantine and the rest were local infections. Khurda, Sundargarh and Cuttack registered the maximum number of new cases at 1,477, 1,186 and 963 respectively. Ten districts recorded more than 300 cases each.  With this the tally rose to 5,00,162 of which 4,23,257 have recovered and the active cases stood at 74,731.

The maximum four deaths were reported from Khurda, two each from Balasore and Malkangiri and one each from Boudh, Deogarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar, Kalahandi, Nayagarh, Rayagada, Sambalpur and Sundargarh.