Odisha reports fifth COVID-19 death, number of cases rises to 978

Odisha recorded one more COVID-19 fatality on Tuesday, taking the death toll to five, while 102 people, including a police constable, tested positive for the virus, raising the total cases to 978 in the state, a health department official said. A 75-year-old-man from Cuttack died of the disease at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, he said.

"Sorry to inform that a 75-year-old patient of Cuttack suffering from severe comorbidities and chronic pulmonary disease was admitted to AIIMS, Bhubaneswar Emergency and unfortunately passed away within few hours," the Health and Family Welfare department said on its official Twitter handle.

The elderly man tested positive for coronavirus, the official said, adding that this is the first COVID-19 casualty from Cuttack district. Earlier, four people died of the disease, two each from Bhubaneswar and Ganjam, the health department official said. A total of 102 people tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 978, he said.

Of the new patients, 97 were in various quarantine centres across districts of Odisha as they had recently returned from Gujarat, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Telengana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharastra, the official said. Five others were detected during the contact-tracing exercise, he said.

One of the five new patients, who were not in the quarantine centres, was identified as a 36-year-old constable of the Armed Police Reserve in the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Commissionerate. The constable, the first policeman in the state to be diagnosed with COVID-19, is suspected to have been infected after coming in contact with a migrant worker, a senior official of the commissionerate said.

Sources said doctors at the four police hospitals in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack are monitoring the health conditions of all police personnel closely, following established protocol.

"Contact tracing of other four patients outside quarantine centres is being undertaken," the official said.

The fresh cases were reported from 11 different districts. The state capital was on Monday declared coronavirus-free after the recovery of 48 patients. Two people, including the constable, tested positive for the disease on Tuesday. Similarly, the government had announced Jagatsinghpur as a coronavirus-free district, but it witnessed 23 fresh cases on Tuesday.

The number of active cases now stands at 666, while 307 people have so far recovered from the disease, the official said. Meanwhile, number of tests for COVID-19 in Odisha has crossed the 1 lakh mark and a total of 4,536 samples were tested on Monday. Chief Secretary A K Tripathy said, "Odisha has so far conducted 1,00,302 corona tests with installation of modern testing labs and machines in various institutions."

Ganjam tops the COVID-19 tally in the state with 307 cases, followed by Jajpur (168), Balasore (121), Bhadrak (95), Khurda (64), Kendrapara (38), Puri (33), Jagatsinghpur (28), Sundargarh (27), Cuttack (27), Angul (17), Mayurbhanj (11), Nayagarh (10), Keonjhar (8) and Bolangir (6). Five cases were reported from Boudh, three from Sambalpur, two each from Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Jharsuguda and Deogarh and one each from Koraput and Dhenkanal.