The rapid rise in COVID-19 cases goes unabated as the State on Sunday reported 4,714 new cases with a 28 percent rise in the last 24 hours, the highest during a period of surge since June 2021. The latest spike has contributed to a weekly growth at an alarming 693%.

The prevailing spike in daily Covid cases appears to have been fuelled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. It is being apprehended that infections will make steady rise in the coming days. The growth rate is no doubt disconcerting as this was not the case during the peak of the second wave last year, Director, Health Services, Bijay Mohapatra said on Sunday.

However, the covid surge is now a national trend and it is not the time to be panicked as the infection is less severe than it was the case when the delta variant had triggered havoc last year. Cases of hospitalization are very few.

As a matter of fact, the State has recorded zero-fatality in the past 48 hours. The government has risen to the occasion with a contingency plan by revamping hospital beds, oxygen supply system, and Intensive care units to meet with the eventuality, he added.

Of the total cases, 416 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 6.71 percent after remaining below 1% for nearly three months.

The new infections pushed the cumulative tally to 10,70,869 while 75 cases of Omicron mutant variants have been detected in the State so far, the health authorities said on Sunday.

The State on Sunday did not record fresh fatality for the second day in a row with the death toll remaining static at 8,468. The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) at 6.71% surpassed 1% for the 6^th consecutive day.

All the 30 districts in the State currently have active cases while Khordha with 5,671 active cases stays at the red zone. Sundargarh and Jharsuguda with 2,216 and 1,294 active cases respectively have turned into a yellow zone with its cumulative active case tally breaching 1,000-mark.

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 1,619 single-day cases, accounting for almost 35% of the State’s cumulative tally of the day. Khordha district is followed by Sundergarh (662), Sambalpur (437), and Cuttack (360).

The state currently has 16,117 active COVID-19 cases while 10,46,231 patients including 260 on Saturday recovering from the disease.

As 4,714 samples gave positive results out of 70,200 samples tested on Saturday, the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stood at 6.71 per cent against the previous day’s 5.15%.

The State’s recovery rate currently stands at 97.69% while active cases account for 1.50% of total positive cases registered in the State.

The State’s share is 3.03% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 3.41% 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.