Odisha registers over 5,000 fresh COVID-19 cases, 10 deaths

Daily COVID-19 cases continued to dip in Odisha, where 5,057 more people tested positive on Friday, 844 less than the previous day, the health department said.As many as 667 children are among the newly infected, it said in a bulletin.

Daily COVID-19 cases continued to dip in Odisha, where 5,057 more people tested positive on Friday, 844 less than the previous day, the health department said.

As many as 667 children are among the newly infected, it said in a bulletin. The coronavirus tally stood at 12,36,226, while 10 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 8,560.

Fifth-three coronavirus patients have died of comorbidities in the past, the bulletin said. The state had logged 5,901 single-day cases and eight deaths on Thursday. A week ago, it had reported 9,833 fresh infections.

Odisha tested 61,635 samples in the past 24 hours at a positivity rate of 8.2 per cent, it added Khurda district reported 1,111 new cases, followed by 495 in Cuttack and 429 in Sundargarh, the bulletin said.

The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) was 17.1 per cent in Khurda and 12.9 in Sundargarh. Nineteen more districts have a positivity rate of over five per cent.

The coastal state now has 64,217 active cases, and 11,63,396 patients have recovered from the disease so far, including 11,157 since Thursday.

Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra said people were developing less severe symptoms due to vaccination.

"The restrictions can be relaxed only when the cases are very low as the highly-transmissible Omicron variant can spread again," he told reporters.