Govt lives in hope as positive cases decline

Bhubaneswar: In what could be heartening development for the state, there seems to be a gradual decline in number of fresh positive cases despite 1,068 more testing positive on Wednesday. While the new cases took the virus load to 29,175, this is the lowest addition in more than a week.
Health minister Naba Kishore Das said there is a noticeable fall in the number of new infections, particularly in the worst-affected Ganjam district. “This is a heartening development. Things should improve from here. However, there is no scope to lower our guard as any laxity may cost us dear,” Das said.
The health minister said the mortality rate in Odisha (0.54%) remains far lower than the national average of 2.2%. “With plasma therapy, the mortality rate may go down further as the government focuses on saving lives,” he said.
On Wednesday, five more people died, raising the virus toll to 159. Doctors from other districts, who have been deployed in Ganjam keeping in mind the situation there, will be gradually withdrawn as the situation improves and repatriated to their original places of posting, Das added.
In Ganjam, 245 more tested positive for the virus, the lowest in the past eight days, though the number is still highest among the districts. Among others Khurda (194), Sundargarh (112), Gajapati (88), Koraput (66) and Cuttack (61) contributed to the bulk of the new infections. Of the 194 cases in Khurda, 137 are from Bhubaneswar.
Ajay Parida, director of Institute of Life Sciences, said the situation in high case load districts of Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttack and Jajpur seems to be improving though Rourkela city continues to report spurt in the number of new cases. “In Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Berhampur, the number of new infections are declining. Such a trend should hopefully continue because there has been aggressive contact tracing and testing of people with symptoms,” Parida said.
The 1068 positive cases were from 10,750 samples tested. A day earlier, 1215 had tested positive from among 9113 samples.
The new deaths include men aged 46 and 50 from Balasore and Kandhamal besides three women from Puri (55), Ganjam (60) and Makangiri (62). A two-year old Covid positive girl from Bhadrak district expired due to congenital heart disease with cardiac failure, raising the number of deaths of Covid patients due to non-Covid reasons to 36.
Meanwhile, as many as 878 Covid-19 patients recovered, raising the number of cured to 18,939. The state now has 10,041 active positive cases, which is close to the number of active positive cases in Delhi (10,770), Rajasthan (10,745) and Kerala (10,350).
EoM
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