The coastal state is in the midst of an exponential spike of COVID-19 infections with the tally leapfrogging to 732% growth in the past week, sending ominous signals towards the possible outbreak of the third wave of the pandemic.

The scenario is disconcerting, to say the least as the State crossed the 1,000 mark for the second day in a row and logged as many as 1,897 new cases were diagnosed, a 56% rise than the previous day’s 1,216 tallies.

Last time, the State had breached the 1000-mark in a single day with 1,041 cases on 18 August 18, 2021. Thus the latest spike is the highest in the past five months.

The manifold growth in infection has left the health authorities in quandary despite the claim that the government is fully prepared to tackle the situation by enhancing the infra like hospitals beds, ventilators, Intensive care unit, and oxygen supply systems.

On 31 December 2021, the State had reported 228 cases and today’s tally grew by 1,669 more cases. Thus the growth in the past week is to the tune of 732%, an alarming spike by any stretch of the imagination.

The disconcerting feature of today’s Covid trajectory lies in the fact that the test positivity rate (TPR) has soared to 2.62 per cent for the first time in the last six months.

The new infections pushed the cumulative tally to 10,59,773 while 61 cases of Omicron mutant variants have been detected in the State so far, the health authorities said on Thursday.

The State recorded one fresh fatality today with the death toll reaching 8,467. The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) at 2.62% surpassed 1% for the third consecutive day. Of the new infectees, 258 are between 0-18 years of age.

All the 30 districts in the State currently have active cases while Khordha with 2,167 active cases has turned into a yellow 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 669 cases, accounting for almost 36% of the State’s cumulative tally of the day. The Khordha was followed by 262 in Sundargarh, 148 in Cuttack, 125 in Sambalpur, and 100 in Balasore.

The state currently has 5,739 active COVID-19 cases while 10,45,514 patients including 138 on Wednesday recovering from the disease.

As 1,897 samples gave positive results out of 72,370 samples tested on Tuesday, the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stood at 2.62 percent against the previous day’s 1.7%.

The State’s recovery rate currently stands at 98.65% while active cases account for 0.54% of total positive cases registered in the State.

The State’s share is 3.09% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 3.76% of India’s total active cases. The number of cured patients accounts for 3.11% of the country’s total recovery. Odisha has so far reported 1.85% of the country’s Coronavirus deaths.

The state’s health authorities have so far administered 5,05,71,020 COVID-19 vaccine doses while 2,11,71,719 people out of 3.09 crore eligible adult population are fully vaccinated. Nearly 69% of the eligible population has so far received both doses of vaccine.