Bhubaneswar: From single digits to double and triple in no time, Odisha has witnessed a steep increase in the COVID-19 positive cases following the return of thousands of migrants stranded in different parts of the country.
The State reported its first COVID-19 positive case on March 15 and 42 days later, the tally reached 100 mark. In 7 days, the count rose to 200 and the doubling rate posted a big spike as days progressed.
It took only two days to touch 400 mark from 300 and two days to reach 500 and 600 mark respectively. As per government data, Odisha has seen a massive jump in the COVID-19 count in last 9 days registering a whopping 400 cases.
The State reported 85 cases today, taking the total positive count to 624 today. Of the new cases, highest 42 cases were detected in Ganjam, 13 in Kendrapara, 9 cases in Bhadrak, 2 in Sundergarh and 3 in Khurda district respectively.
The highest single-day spike was observed in the State on May 13 as 101 Covid-19 cases were registered.
As per the data shared by I &PR department regarding the first 73 COVID-19 cases of the day, 50 patients had returned from Gujarat's Surat, 20 from West Bengal and one from Karnataka. Two persons are from a containment zone in Sundergarh district.
The number of active cases in Odisha now stands at 478, and 143 persons have recovered from the disease while three have died so far due to COVID-19.
Health Department officials informed that a total of 4,394 samples were tested on Wednesday, taking the total number of COVID-19 tests conducted in Odisha so far to 77,150.
Ganjam continues to top the chart as the worst COVID-19 affected district in the State with 252 cases followed by Balasore (90), Jajpur (88), Khurda (53), Bhadrak (40), Sundergarh (25) and Angul (15).