As cases surge again, Odisha sees 25 deaths, highest one-day toll

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha on Thursday reported 25 Covid deaths, the highest in one day since the beginning of the pandemic last year, taking the officially confirmed toll to 2,403. While positive cases in the second wave is now almost equal to that in the first, the number of deaths reported is less than one-third so far. Government figures said 1929 Covid patients (0.58%) died last year — 1876 of Covid and 53 Covid patients died due to other reasons. This year, however, only 527 have died of Covid (there is no report of Covid patients dying due to other reasons), registering a death rate of 0.16%.
The state on Thursday reported 11,498 fresh infections, taking the total virus caseload to 6,55,899. The total positive cases — 3,26,033 — reported so far this year (since January 1) is close to last year’s figure of 3,29,866.
Additional chief secretary (health) Pradipta Kumar Mohapatra said deaths reported so far may not be the actual figures.
Odisha among 22 states with positivity rate above 15%: Centre
Each death of Covid patient is reported to a committee led by the director medial education and training (DMET). The committee audits them and finds out which patient has died of Covid. There may be pendency because of the workload. So actual number of deaths may be more,” Mohapatra told TOI.
“I have asked the district administrations to expedite sending the death summaries to the committee so that the audits are done faster,” he said. Apart from DMET, director health and director public health are other members of the committee. The low death count has baffled many amid rising load on cremation grounds and expansions of crematoriums in many parts of the state. A statement issued by Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation on May 14 had highlighted increasing body count and pressure on Satya Nagar crematorium in city.
Meanwhile, after showing a dip in new Covid cases for three days, infections have started going up again for the past two days, raising concern that the numbers may shoot up further. The 11,498 new infections is more compared to 11,099 a day earlier, while day-to-day numbers had started falling from 12,390 reported on May 14 to 10,321 on Tuesday. The Union ministry of health and family welfare on Thursday tweeted that Odisha, with a positivity rate of 22.8%, is among 22 states having positivity of above 15%.
Jayant Panda, government’s technical adviser on Covid-19, said such fluctuation is not unexpected. “The number may rise for some more days before it starts falling again,” he said.
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