Odisha on Monday registered a 31.75% decline in the daily COVID-19 cases with 444 people testing positive for the infection which pushed the state’s caseload to 10,24,464, a health department official said.

The state on Sunday had reported 585 cases while it recorded 602 on Saturday, implying that the pandemic is now on a steady downward trajectory in the coastal State. Of the 30 districts, seven did not report any infection in the last 24 hours.

Of the 444 new cases, 59 were children and adolescents in the age group of 0 to 18 years. The rate of infection among the children and adolescents was 13.28 per cent against 16.41 per cent on Sunday. The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) which was 0.81% yesterday marginally dropped to 0.70% on Monday.

Khurda district of which the state capital Bhubaneswar is a part reported the highest 170 cases followed by Cuttack (73) (31). These two districts together accounted for 54.72 per cent of the total single day new cases in the state.

At least five revenue districts- Boudh and Nabarangpur (2) and Nuapada (5) – are now on the verge of becoming COVID-free accounting for single-digit active cases. The Covid hot spot with 2,495 active cases is in the yellow zone.

The Health and Family Welfare department said five fresh fatalities pushed the state’s coronavirus death toll to 8,180. This apart, 53 other COVID-19 patients have also died due to comorbidities.

As 444 people tested positive for the infection out of the 62,715 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the daily test positivity rate (TPR) now stands at 0.80 per cent as against 0.70% TPR on Monday.

The state currently has 5,702 active COVID-19 cases while as many as 10,10,829 patients including 646 on Monday, recovered from the highly infectious disease.

The state has thus far conducted over 1.97 crore sample tests while the positivity rate stands at 5.19 per cent.

The State’s recovery rate currently stands at 98.64% while active cases account for 0.55% of total positive cases registered in the State.

The State’s share is 3.04% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 1.94% of India’s total active cases. The number of cured patients accounts for 3.07% of the country’s total recovery. Odisha has so far reported 1.83% of the country’s Coronavirus deaths.