In a the worst surge of the pandemic, Odisha’s COVID-surge reached a new peak on Sunday as the coastal State reported record-shattering daily virus infection and fatality logging 12,852 positive cases and 28 fatalities, the highest ever single day infection and death toll since the outbreak of the infection in mid-March last year.

The Test Positivity Rate which is hovering around 19 to 22 percent in the current month continues to be a major area of concern.

As the situation threatens to slip out of grip, the Odisha government has decided to conduct a 3-month door-to-door health screening of people showing signs of COVID symptoms from 24 May. The ASHA and Anganwadi workers will do the health screening with surveillance and monitoring by the State’s health and family welfare department.

The State reported 10,000-plus positive cases for the 12th day in a row with cumulative caseload climbing to 6,92,382, leaving the COVID managers grappling to put brakes on the 2nd wave of COVID-19.

With 28 more COVID patients dying, the overall death toll has jumped to 2,484 while the active cases rose to 1,11,862 with the latest spike of virus infection.

The State recorded a spike of 1,744 positive cases at a substantial rise of 15.70 per cent in the last 24 hours while the test positivity rate in the past 24 hours increased from 18.28% per cent to 19.13%.

As many as 1,91,984 virus infections have been reported in the State since 5 May, when lockdown was enforced in the State. Since the past 18 days, 10,665 cases are being reported in the State at a daily average.

Khordha district has become the epicenter of COVID surge in terms of both cases and fatalities. The district has reported 5 deaths and the biggest single-day surge of 1909 infections in the last one day.

Currently, the Khordha district has 16,128 active cases, the highest in the State followed by Cuttack at 9,617.

As per the information posted at the COVID dashboard of Odisha government, 86 percent of the 30 districts are currently in the Red Zone category as the active cases in as many as 26 revenue districts have surpassed 1,000 count. Only four districts- Deogarh, Gajapati, Kandhamal and Malkangiri- come under Yellow Zone with less than 1,000 active cases.

The State’s recovery rate currently stands at 83.47% with 5,77,983 cured of the disease so far. Odisha currently has 1,11,862 active cases, which account for 16.16% of total positive cases registered in the State.

The State’s share is 2.61% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 3.99% of India’s total active cases. The number of cured patients accounts for 2.47% of the country’s total recovery. Odisha has so far reported 0.83% of the country’s Coronavirus deaths. The overall positivity rate in the State stands at 6.12 per cent.

The spike in infections since the past fortnight is mainly due to the ramping up daily testing. As many as 67,156 samples were tested in the last 24 hours whereas the testing rate stood lowly at around 40,000 in the first week of May. The ramping up of testing and increasing the vaccination are the two viable options to break the chain of transmission, Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra said.

If everything goes the right way, the State may witness flattening the curve of the disease towards the first week of June. However, it is not prudent to jump to a conclusion that the virus will be flattened and its transmission will be breached in the next ten to fifteen days, he added.