One in four persons COVID positive in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha is in the grip of a rampaging Covid-19 second wave with one in every four persons tested found to be positive.

The State is adding at least eight new cases every minute. On Friday, the State touched another high with 12,238 new infections and positivity rate (TPR) rising above 24 per cent (pc).

This was for the first time that the fresh cases breached 12,000 mark this pandemic even as the number of tests went past 50,000.

As per the mathematical model followed by the government, though Odisha was expected to report 13,000 plus cases a day by mid-May, health experts said the peak may be delayed as the State has failed to impose complete lockdown unlike the previous year.

“People are now allowed to move for six hours to procure essentials which is too much, especially when the infection curve is shooting. It has to be two to three hours at the most with proper Covid appropriate behaviour or else the whole purpose of lockdown is defeated,” pointed out community medicine expert Dr BK Patro.

Health officials also admitted that the number may increase further as social distancing is compromised at many places with people throwing the norms to the wind.

“I fear the cases may go beyond 15,000 if the TPR remains as it is now in some districts,” said an official.
The disease claimed 19 more lives, the highest on a day since the onset of the outbreak. Last year, maximum 18 deaths were reported on a day in October.

The worst-hit Sundargarh registered a new high with 2,073 cases followed by Khurda at 1,828 cases. Western Odisha districts like Kalahandi, Sambalpur and Bargarh recorded 580, 544 and 475 cases respectively though infections slightly came down in Balangir (260), Nabarangpur (282), Nuapada (290) and Jharsuguda (306).

Among other affected districts, Balasore, Bhadrak, Boudh and Dhenkanal saw a massive jump in new cases. The cases rose at least two times from 179 to 437 in Balasore, 158 to 381 in Bhadrak, 128 to 250 in Boudh and 88 to 142 in Dhenkanal.

As many as 50,799 tests including 19,955 through RT-PCR have been conducted in the last 24 hours. The TPR was highest 52.4 pc in Sundargarh and it jumped to 45 pc from 37.8 pc a day before in Boudh.

With the fresh cases, the tally soared to 5,12,400, of which 4,31,658 have recovered and 2,140 succumbed. The active cases stood at 78,549.