Odisha on Sunday recorded the 12th successive day of 1000-plus new cases with 1,434 persons testing positive taking the tally close to the 35000 mark.

The growth rate is almost five-fold since in little over a month span, amply indicating that the State is witnessing the peak spell of the contagion. The State’s fatality toll soared to 197 with 10 patients dying of Coronavirus, the health and family welfare department officials said.

Since 1 July till date, the infections have climbed from 7,316 to 34,913 (2 August)- the positive growth of 79.04 percent. The fatality rate also grew by 82.23% during the period (1 July2 August). From 25 on 1 July, the casualty number has climbed to 197 today.

The local contact cases , alleged to be community transmission in Ganjam and Khurda districts and cluster cases in a few other districts have also grown to 38% .

However despite unabated surge in infections, there are certain reassuring features like the dip in COVID’s positivity and growth rate as recorded today. Today the COVID positivity stood at 9.81% today which implied that around 10 samples out of 100 are testing positive while it was 11.33% yesterday. The growth rate of the disease slipped to 4.28% from 5.02 recorded yesterday.

With as many as 21,274 patients so far getting cured of the disease, the recovery rate stands at an impressive 60.93%. Of today’s 1,434 new infections, 889 were from quarantine centres while 545 were local contact cases .

Odisha’s COVID hotspot Ganjam with 320 led todays tally followed by Khurda (218), Rayagada (197), Cuttack (123), Gajapati (91), Sundargarh (76), Puri (65), Jajpur (57) and Sambalpur (51). Ganjam and Khurda districts, the epicentre of the disease in the State, have so far accounted for 15,695 infections44.95% of total cases reported from the State till date.

Besides the two COVID hotspot districts, six other districts- Cuttack, Gajapati, Sundargarh, Jajpur and Balasorehave reported more than 1,000 positive cases.

Of the infected persons, 71.5% are men while women constitute 28.5% of total patients. 58.4% of the total patients are in the 15-40 age group. The vulnerable groups of patients in 60 year or above and 14 year or below age comprise 12.3% of the total tally of COVID-19 patients in the State.

Deogarh district with a tally of 96 infections stands at the bottom of COVID-19 chart and is the least affected.