Bhubaneswar: Odisha reported 1558 new covid cases and 66 deaths in the past 24 hours taking the total tally in the state to 9,75,690 with 5834 fatalities.
Health and Family Welfare Department sources said in the past 24 hours 904 new infections were reported from the quarantine centres and 654 local contact cases from all the 30 districts.
Khordha recorded the highest number of 479 cases while Cuttack registered 241 cases. These two coastal districts alone accounted for over 46 per cent of the total covid positive cases reported in the past 24 hours.
Sources said since July 20 last the state has been witnessing a declining trend in the daily covid load cases and maintaining below the 2000 mark.
On the other hand, there has been no let-up in the daily covid deaths in the state. Since July 8 except on three occasions, more than 60 covid patients are succumbing to the virus daily.
In the past 24 hours, 66 covid patients under treatment succumbed to the virus. They included eleven from Sundargarh district followed by ten from Cuttack,8 in Khordha, six from Bhadrak and five from Jajpur district.
The state today recorded a 2.05 test positivity rate as out of 75,868 tests conducted in the state on Thursday 1558 tested covid positive.
Since July 13 last the state has been witnessing the test positivity rate below 3 per cent and over the last fortnight, it has declined from 2.9 per cent to 2.09 per cent.
Barring two coastal Odisha districts such as Puri and Jagatsinghpur, all the other 28 districts in the state have recorded a TPR of less than 5 per cent. As many as sixteen districts, however, have registered the TPR less than 1 per cent.
Jagatsinghpur district has the highest TPR of 6 per cent followed by Cuttack( 5.1 per cent).
Sources said 2039 people were recovered from the virus on Thursday taking the total recoveries in the state to 9,53,088.
The active cases further declined to 16,715 with Khordha district registering the highest number of 4661 cases followed by Cuttack(2191) and Balasore (1077). These three coastal districts together have 7929 active cases, accounting for 47.43 per cent of the total active cases in the state.
Meanwhile, considering the decline in the number of covid positive cases in the state during the past few days, the government has decided to open medical colleges, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health Institutions in the state under strict adherence to the covid guidelines.
A circular issued by the Additional Chief Secretary health P K Mohapatra said theory classes will continue to be online while practical classes will be held in small groups.
The students were asked to submit written permission from their parents to join the classes.
It said fully vaccinated, unvaccinated and incomplete vaccinated students would be segregated in different batches for clinical and practical purposes.