Contrary to the countrywide declining trend of COVID-19 fatality, Odisha continues to maintain upward trend of death toll as the State reported yet another steep spike of 57 dying of the disease, taking the cumulative toll to 4,415, the health and family welfare department said.

However, in a comforting turn of event, the Covid recoveries in the State crossed nine lakh mark while the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) on Thursday dipped below 4% to reach at 3.41%.

The rising graph of deaths comes at a time when the State is witnessing dip in positive cases recording below 3,000 positive cases for the fourth day in a row. In the last 24 hours, the state registered 2,542 new cases, pushing the tally to 9,32,330.

Officials however claimed the rising toll is not a cause of worry as the fatalities are on a higher side due to the ongoing district-level audit of deaths that were recorded in the past one month. Each of the suspected Covid death is being analyzed and it is being added to the tally after foolproof finding.

The highest 7 deaths were reported from the Khurda district, followed by Bargarh, Ganjam, Nayagarh, Sundargarh (five each.

As many as 1,58,598 COVID-19 positive cases were reported in the 38 days at a daily average of 4,173 cases in the State while 1,660 have succumbed to the infections during the period with daily average deaths of 43. Of the cumulative death toll, almost 37% of fatalities have been reported in the last 38 days.

There are 27,580 active cases in the state at present-2.95% of the total positive cases in the State.

In the last 24 hours, 2,920 patients recovered. So far, 9,00,282 have been cured of COVID-19 in the state. The overall recovery rate in the State stands at 96.56%.

Cuttack district also reported the highest 428 new cases, followed by Khurda (424) and Balasore (221).

The state has tested over 1.42 samples for COVID-19 to date, including 74,468 on Wednesday. Odisha’s overall test positivity rate stands at 6.52 per cent while TPR was recorded at 3.41% on Thursday.

Odisha’s tryst with the pandemic had begun on 15 March last year with detection of the first case while on 27 May 2021; Odisha’s caseload had crossed the nine lakh mark. On 1 May this year, the State had recorded over 10,000 fresh cases for the first time on a day since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.

The State’s share is 3.04% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 6.07% of India’s total active cases. The number of cured patients accounts for 3.02% of the country’s total recovery. Odisha has so far reported 1.09% of the country’s Coronavirus deaths.