One more week to clear Covid death backlog: Odisha Health officials

BHUBANESWAR :  Even as 60 more people from Odisha succumbed to Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, health officials on Tuesday said it will take at least one more week to clear the backlog of deaths in the State. “More than 300 death reports are yet to be audited.

The fresh deaths are also adding to the backlog and it will take some more days for verification. The pending cases are expected to be cleared by August first week,” said a health official.  Of the 60 fatalities, the maximum 21 were from Sundargarh district, eight from Khurda, six each from Cuttack and Angul, five each from Keonjhar and Puri, four each from Boudh and Sambalpur and two from Bhadrak.

Though the new cases dropped further to 1,629 following a dip in overall testing and RT-PCR, the test positivity rate remained above 2.5 per cent. As many as 62,686 tests were conducted including 19,433 RT-PCR against around 80,000 tests conducted a few days back.  

Khurda district was at the top with maximum 532 cases followed by Cuttack (160), Puri (96), Balasore (93) pushing the tally to 9.7 lakh. The TPR was highest 6.7 pc in Khurda, 6.2 pc in Cuttack and 5.8 in Kendrapara.

The active cases stood at 15,777 after recovery of 1,969 patients. Only Khurda district is in the red zone while two districts - Cuttack and Balasore are in the yellow zone in terms of active cases. The remaining 27 districts are in the green zone. 

Director of Medical Education and Training (DMET) Prof CBK Mohanty said the focus is on reducing the number of cases in the districts where there is no let-up in the infection count.  “We are taking all possible measures to tackle any emerging situation even though the infection graph is yet to go completely downward. Active surveillance has been intensified and urban bodies have been asked to tighten enforcement against violation of Covid norms,” he added.