Is Odisha Testing Enough? Positivity Rate Drops Below 10% With 5891 New COVID Cases

Bhubaneswar: The drop in daily COVID-19 caseload continued in Odisha on Tuesday as 5,891, including 852 in the age group of 18 years, tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours, against 7,291 cases on Monday.

The state had reported 8,520 cases on Sunday, 8,845 cases on Saturday, and 9,833 cases on Friday.

According to the I & PR department, 3,413 of the new cases are from quarantine and 2,478 local contacts. The highest of 1,500 has been reported from Khurda, followed by Sundargarh (501) and Cuttack (482).

Here are the district-wise figures of new cases:

1. Angul: 106
2. Balasore: 234
3. Bargarh: 85
4. Bhadrak: 94
5. Balangir: 138
6. Boudh: 93
7. Cuttack: 482
8. Deogarh: 61
9. Dhenkanal: 133
10. Gajapati: 96
11. Ganjam: 75
12. Jagatsinghpur: 108
13. Jajpur: 219
14. Jharsuguda: 35
15. Kalahandi: 188
16. Kandhamal: 73
17. Kendrapada: 114
18. Keonjhar: 137
19. Khurda: 1500
20. Koraput: 128
21. Malkangiri: 52
22. Mayurbhanj: 218
23. Nabarangpur: 95
24. Nayagarh: 205
25. Nuapada: 56
26. Puri: 63
27. Rayagada: 125
28. Sambalpur: 158
29. Sonepur: 20
30. Sundargarh: 501

Besides, 299 from the state pool.

With these cases being detected from 59,807 samples, the test positivity rate (TPR) dropped below 10 per cent and stood at 9.85 per cent.

The TPR on Monday was 11.76 per cent with 7,291 of 61,969 samples testing positive for the infection. The state had tested 72,524 samples the previous day and the TRP stood at 11.74 per cent.

Notably, COVID testing in the state had seen a significant drop since January 12 when the daily caseload breached the 10,000-mark for the first time during the third wave of COVID with 81,065 samples being tested. The state tested 75,731 samples on January 13, 74,936 on January 14, 77,120 on January 15, 70,117 on January 16 and 70,990 on January 17.

The testing dropped further to 69,502 samples on January 18. Following a directive from the Centre to enhance the number to effectively track the spread of the pandemic, Odisha again began testing over 70,000 samples for the next few days before it dropped to 61,969 on January 23 and 59,807 on January 24.

Odisha now has 77,340 active cases.

The testing has dropped despite, Public Health Director Niranjan Mishra’s statement to media that Omicron will soon be entering the community transmission stage in Odisha and this might lead to an explosion of cases.