Covid-19 cases go beyond 100 for 4th straight day in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: Another 143 people tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday, raising the total number of infected in the state to 2388. But more than the increase in numbers - which has not gone below 100 in the past four days - the fact that 44 of those infected in the last 48 hours were not in quarantine has emerged as a bit of a worry.

Bramhadev Pattnaik, a virologist and former director of ICAR International Centre for Foot and Mouth Disease, said the extent of the virus spread is not properly mapped in the state or anywhere in the country. "Infections in some local people means the infection is there among many. Nationally and in the state, the number of tests done is too low to figure out how many are actually infected," Pattnaik said.

But a government official said the local cases should not be cause of concern as they are mostly close contacts of quarantined people and front-line workers ( ASHA , anganwadi workers and panchayat representatives). "There is hardly any case where the source of infection is not known," the official said.

According to the Covid dashboard of the health department, 31 of the 141 who tested positive on Tuesday and 11 of the 143 infected on Wednesday were 'local' cases and not among those quarantined. This is a sharp departure because prior to this more than 95% of the infected cases were from the quarantined returnees. The number of local cases reported was never in double digits. Experts sounded a note of caution. "The local cases are not surprising given that so many people have returned to the state. This should give us reason to be more cautious and to adhere to social distancing norms," said Ashok Mahapatra, vice-chancellor of SOA University, which runs a 500-bed Covid hospital in partnership with the state government.

The new positive cases include 41 from Ganjam followed by Balasore (24), Sonepur (17) and Balangir (13) while the rest were from 13 other districts. Rayagada joined the list of affected districts reporting one positive case. With this, the viral infection has spread to all 30 districts.

But what could be an encouraging development is that another 91 Covid patients got cured and were discharged from hospitals, raising the total number of recovery to 1416.

The cured include from districts like Deogarh (22), Puri (16), Nayagarh (15), Balangir (9), five each from Angul and Balasore, three each from Bhadrak and Sundargarh, two each from Cuttack, Ganjam, Khurda, Kalahandi and Baragarh besides one each from Dhenkanal, Gajapati and Jajpur.