The rapid rise in COVID-19 cases goes unabated as the State on Saturday reported 3,679 cases with a 35 percent rise in the last 24 hours with a weekly growth estimated at an alarming 867%.

The exponential growth rate has become a cause of concern and this was not the case during the peak of the second wave last year. Given the current trend of COVID trajectory, it is a matter of time when the daily infection will breach the 10,000 psychological barrier, said public health experts.

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The coastal state’s tally leapfrogged to 867% growth in the past week, sending ominous signals towards the possible outbreak of the third wave of the pandemic. On 2 January, 424 infections were detected while 3,255 more cases were detected, thus marking an almost nine-fold increase in daily infections.

Of the total cases, 384 cases are in the age group of 0-18 years. The disconcerting feature of today’s Covid trajectory lies in the fact that the test positivity rate (TPR) has soared to 5.15 percent after remaining below 1% for nearly three months.

The new infections pushed the cumulative tally to 10,66,155 while 61 cases of Omicron mutant variants have been detected in the State so far, the health authorities said on Saturday.

The State did not record fresh fatalities today with the death toll remaining static at 8,468. The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) at 5.15% surpassed 1% for the 5th consecutive day.

All the 30 districts in the State currently have active cases while Khordha with 4,137 active cases has turned into a red zone. Khordha of which the capital city of Bhubaneswar is a part has once again emerged as the hotspot of the disease logging a high of 1,223 cases, accounting for almost 34% of the State’s cumulative tally of the day. Sundargarh has turned into a yellow zone with its cumulative active cases reaching 1,592.

Khordha district, followed by 582 in Sundergarh, 372 in Sambalpur, and 310 new Covid-19 cases were reported from Cuttack district.

The state currently has 11,663 active COVID-19 cases while 10,45,971 patients including 253 on Friday recovering from the disease.

As 3,679 samples gave positive results out of 71,432 samples tested on Friday, the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stood at 5.15 percent against the previous day’s 3.91%.

The State’s recovery rate currently stands at 98.10% while active cases account for 1.09% of total positive cases registered in the State.

The State’s share is 3.01% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 2.47% of India’s total active cases. The number of cured patients accounts for 3.04% of the country’s total recovery. Odisha has so far reported 1.75% of the country’s Coronavirus deaths.

The state’s health authorities have so far administered 5,19,43,010 COVID-19 vaccine doses while 2,18,42,411 people out of 3.09 crore eligible adult population are fully vaccinated. More than 70% of the eligible population has so far received both doses of vaccine.