Odisha records 1,216 new COVID-19 cases, highest single-day tally in 5 months

These five districts accounted for 70 per cent of the new cases.Of the 39 students of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya located at Zinc Nagar district, nine were found infected through rapid antigen test on Tuesday and the remaining 30 tested positive when a team of the Health Department conducted COVID-19 tests on the school premises, official sources said.

Odisha recorded its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases in nearly five months as 1,216 more people, including 187 children, tested positive for the disease on Wednesday, the health department said.

The toll mounted to 8,466 as two patients succumbed to the virus in Bhubaneswar. Fifty-three other coronavirus patients in the state have died due to comorbidities, according to data.

At least 187 children, including 39 students of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Sundargarh district, were among those newly infected. The daily positivity rate rose to 1.77 per cent from 1.31 per cent. The coastal state had recorded 680 new infections a day ago and 424 on Sunday.

The infection tally rose to over 10.58 lakh, including around 10.45 lakh recoveries -- 121 of them in the last 24 hours.

Khurda district, of which state capital Bhubaneswar is a part, reported the maximum number of new cases at 456, followed by Sundargarh at 166, Sambalpur at 99, Cuttack at 80 and Jajpur at 47. These five districts accounted for 70 per cent of the new cases.

Of the 39 students of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya located at Zinc Nagar district, nine were found infected through rapid antigen test on Tuesday and the remaining 30 tested positive when a team of the Health Department conducted COVID-19 tests on the school premises, official sources said. All the infected students are currently under home isolation.

Similarly, 13 new cases were reported from the National Institute of Technology-Rourkela (NIT-R) campus, also in the Sundargarh district, on Tuesday.

Sundargarh's test positivity rate had also jumped to 2.9 per cent, the highest in the state. Odisha now has 3,981 active cases, including 1,551 in Khurda.

A total of 68,878 samples were tested in the last 24 hours.

Around 2.95 crore people have been inoculated with the first dose of COVID vaccines and over 2.13 crore beneficiaries administered the second jab in the state, it added.

Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra said a Delhi-like situation cannot be ruled out in Odisha in view of the prevailing rate of infection.

"The positivity rate has gone past one per cent in Odisha. Delhi saw a rise from one per cent to three per cent, and a similar situation can arise here. Efforts are on to break the infection chain,'' he said.

The third wave of COVID-19 ''now seems imminent with the rising R-value'', which is an indicator of how quickly the infection is spreading, health experts said.

The R-value (reproduction number) was the highest at 2.38 in Sundargarh, 2.22 in Puri, 1.99 in Cuttack city, 1.5 in Khurda, 1.62 in Sambalpur, 1.47 in Balasore and 1.35 in Ganjam, official sources said.