Ganjam and Khurda districts continue to remain as the epicentre of corona virus in Odisha reporting over 4,260 positive cases in the past one week while the authorities reiterate that the spike in cases is due to the ramping up of the daily tests.

The urban clusters in Berhampur Municipal Corporation besides the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation in both the districts  have emerged as the COVID hotspots accounting for more than 80% infections reported during the week.

The spurt of infections in slum clusters of both the cities has added to worry. Though 20% of infections are sourced from the slums, asymptomatic and invisible cases which are yet to come under diagnostic labs’ scanner abound. The test may have been ramped up. But the number is still negligible in a bustling city like Bhubaneswar.

Currently the daily tests oscillate in between 1,000 to 1,200. Over 400 slums have sprouted in the city housing more than 3 lakh population. At best 5,000 to 6,000 samples have been drawn from the slums till date. There are many undetected cases. The tally will rise further once the testing is further scaled up.

Ganjam and Khurda district, the epicentre of the disease in the State, have so far accounted for 13,982 infections- 46.02% of total cases reported from the State till date.

The latest spurt in infection in the districts like Sundargarh, Gajapati and Koraput has become yet another worrying factor.

Meanwhile the COVID tally today surpassed 30,000- mark recording 9th successive 1,000 plus single day spike with the tally getting tripled in three weeks.

In the latest surge of Coronavirus, Odisha on Thursday reported 1,203 plus COVID infections with the tally reaching at 30,378. With 10 patients dying of the infections today, the fatality count has climbed to 169.

Of the new infections, 758 were from quarantine centres while 445 were local contact cases. The local contact cases accounted for a high of 37% of total cases reported today. A whopping 20,000 cases were reported in three weeks’ span in a brisk spike of the contagion and the scaling up of the daily tests is paying dividends in the form of ‘invisible’ patients being snared in the diagnostic kits.

Today the COVID count has surged past 30,000-mark in 23 days, thus the COVID count has tripled in three weeks’ period. The continuing surge in local transmission cases is still the major cause of worry. Almost 40% positive cases of the day were local contact cases.

Of the total 169 deaths, as many as 143 deaths were reported in the current month. The State conducted the highest single day 12,928 COVID diagnostic tests since past 24 hours.

The COVID hotspot Ganjam with 250 infections headed today’s COVID count followed by Khurda (220), Cuttack (97), Sundargarh (74), Gajapati (72), Koraput (66), Malkangiri (65), Bhadrak (53), Jajpur (46), Rayagada (45) and Sambalpur (40).