Odisha records 42 Covid deaths, highest 1-day toll

BHUBANESWAR: The state on Thursday confirmed 42 more deaths due to Covid-19, the highest reported in a single day so far, taking the toll to 2,873. Another 8,839 more tested positive for the virus from among 70,178 samples tested, a positivity rate of 12.5%.
Sundargarh reported five deaths followed by four each in Cuttack and Kandhamal. Boudh, Jharsuguda and Khurda saw three deaths each. Two persons each died in Angul, Balangir, Balasore, Deogarh, Gajapati, Kendrapada, Nabarangpur and Rayagada districts while Bargarh, Bhadrak, Ganjam and Puri reported one death each.
Odisha has reported 255 Covid deaths in the past seven days, which is the highest for a week since the beginning of the pandemic last year.
Additional chief secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said some rise in deaths was not unexpected one week after the peak since many critical patients remain hospitalised. "Odisha attained the peak of 12,852 cases on May 23. There is declining trend in cases now. The deaths would hopefully start going down within the next one week if one goes by the national trend," he said.
"There is also a decline in number of critical care patients and overall oxygen consumption by hospitals. This shows the number of deaths may start falling soon," he said. While around 2,900 patients are in ICU, around 850 of them are on ventilator support, a government source said.
In the past one week (May 27 to June 2), as many as 18 districts - Bhadrak, Dhenkanal, Khurda, Jajpur, Cuttack, Balasore, Puri, Boudh, Jagatsinghpur, Mayurbhanj, Angul, Kendrapada, Jharsuguda, Nayagarh, Nabarangpur, Koraput, Sundargarh and Rayagada - have positivity above 10%. Among the rest 12 districts, it is between five to 10% barring Kandhamal, where it is below 5%.
Odisha's active cases at 85,423 is sixth highest among states after Karnataka (2.93 lakh), Tamil Nadu (2.88 lakh), Maharashtra (2.16 lakh), Kerala (1.92 lakh) and Andhra Pradesh (1.43 lakh).