Odisha reports 2239 new Covid-19 cases, nine deaths in last 24 hours

Health and Family Welfare department sources said out of 2239 cases, 1416 were reported from the quarantine centres and the rest 823 are local contacts.

During the last 24 hours three covid patients from Ganjam district, two from Rayagada and one each from Sambalpur, Malkangiri, Khordha and Balasore died in different hospitals, raising the covid casualties in the state to 362.

Meanwhile, with the recovery of 1503 people on Monday, so far 43779 Covid-19 patients have been cured and discharged from different hospitals across the state.

The state on midnight of August 17 crossed one million tests.

Sources said 1,00,954 tests have been conducted in the state so far and out of them 64533 have been infected with coronavirus and 20,339 active cases are admitted in the Covid-19 hospitals.

The state has been conducting over 50,000 tests per day in the last three days and planned to enhance the tests to one lakh per day in the coming days.

Official sources said out of 2239 cases reported from 29 districts, Khordha district had accounted for highest number of 419 positive cases followed by Ganjam (246), Nayagarh( 147), Balasore (130), Rayagada (120), Cuttack (117), Kandhamal (90) and Mayurbhanj (80).

Ganjam district continued to be in the top of the list with 15256 positive cases including 158 covid deaths followed by Khordha with 9380 positive cases,49 covid deaths and 10 non-covid deaths.

Cuttack district has reported 4247 covid positive cases,18 covid deaths and four non-covid deaths while Sundargarh has registered 3322 positive cases with 22 covid deaths and four non covid deaths.

Rayagada district has reported 17 covid deaths followed by nine each in Puri and Nayagarh districts and eight each in Sambalpur and Balasore districts.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has claimed that the Covid-19 positivity rate has drastically declined in Odisha with the intensive contact tracing and enhancement of testing capacity.

The positivity rate, he said has also drastically come down while the fatality rate in Odisha is among the lowest in the country.

Mr Patnaik said with intensive contact tracing and enhancement of testing capacity, COVID-19 positivity rate has declined from around 10.78 per cent in July to 5.2 per cent in August.