Odisha Reports 257 Fresh COVID Case, 1 More Death; Weekly Positivity Rate 10.8% In Sonepur

Bhubaneswar: The active tally touched 1186 with 257 new COVID cases being detected in the last 24 hours while the virus claimed one more life in Odisha, the Health Ministry data revealed on Friday.

Further reconciliation of mortality figures is ongoing, it added.

The state dashboard, however, put the number of fresh cases at 258. With these infections being detected from 6279 samples, the test positivity rate stood at 4.1%.

The COVID scare has returned amid a significant rise in daily infection in the past week. Odisha has been reporting 200 and above infections in the last 3 days. The active tally crossed the 1,000 mark after six months with 200 cases on Thursday. Sonepur recorded the highest weekly positivity rate of 10.8 per cent in the state between April 5 and 11. Four other districts that recorded a TPR of over 5 per cent are Sambalpur (9.6), Sundargarh (9.1 per cent), Balangir (7.6) and Nabarangpur (5.4), according to statistics shared by the Ministry.

Health department sources said Nabarangpur, Sambalpur and Sundargarh have been recording more than 30 cases each daily for last four days.

Daily test positivity rate had soared to 4% from 2% a couple of days ago amid a drop in testing from 6,000 to less than 5,000 in the state. Odisha is also seeing a rise in juvenile cases indicates the infection has started spreading among children.

Notably, a 50-year-old man from Sundargarh district had earlier succumbed to the disease while undergoing treatment at a COVID hospital.