Odisha reports record 4,198 new COVID-19 cases, 11 fresh fatalities

Odisha registered its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases on Monday as 4,198 more people, including state BJP chief Samir Mohanty, tested positive for the infection, a health official said.

Odisha registered its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases on Monday as 4,198 more people, including state BJP chief Samir Mohanty, tested positive for the infection, a health official said. The fresh infections have pushed the state's coronavirus tally to 1,55,005.

Eleven more patients succumbed to the infection, taking the state's coronavirus death toll to 637, the official said. Odisha had reported its previous highest single-day spike of 3,996 cases on September 11, he said.

The state also registered recovery of as many as 3,382 patients taking the total number of persons cured of the infection to 1,22,024 which is 78.72 per cent of the caseload. The state now has 32,291 active cases.

As many as 2,476 new cases were reported from different quarantine centres, while 1,722 people tested positive for the infection during contact tracing. The new cases included 41 inmates of the Circle Jail at Baripada, said Vinit Bharadwaj, the District Magistrate cum Collector of Mayurbhanj.

The number of infections among jail inmates has increased to 81, the collector said. Khurda district, under which Bhubaneswar falls, reported the highest number of new cases at 758, followed by Cuttack (367) and Puri (310). Ten other districts registered more than 100 fresh infections each, he said.

Four fresh fatalities were reported in Cuttack, two each in Bolangir and Khurda and one each in Kandhamal, Nayagarh and Mayurbhanj districts, the official said. Fifty-three COVID-19 patients have died in the state due to other ailments so far.

The state has so far tested over 24.72 lakh samples for COVID-19, including 49,393 on Sunday, the official said. State BJP chief Samir Mohanty said that he tested positive for the infection.

"Due to symptoms of Corona, I went for the test and found positive. I am doing well, but as per the advice of doctors, I got hospitalised and under treatment. I request all who have come in contact with me in the past few days to kindly isolate themselves and conduct tests if necessary," he tweeted. Mohanty is the third senior BJP leader in the state, after Bargarh MP Suresh Pujari and Nilgiri MLA Sukanta Nayak, to contract the disease.

As the state has been witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases since August, Odisha government on Monday asked private hospitals in major cities to reserve 50 per cent of their bed strength and 80 per cent of ICU beds for the treatment of coronavirus patients. At the same time, the state government also directed district collectors and commissioners of municipal corporations to close down COVID Care Centres, COVID Care Homes and Temporary Medical Centres where the occupancy is almost nil, officials said.