Odisha: 218 new COVID-19 cases; tally crosses 6,000

(Eds: With more inputs)

Bhubaneswar, Jun 26 () Odisha's COVID-19 tally crossed the 6,000-mark on Friday, with 218 more people, including seven NDRF personnel, testing positive for the infection, a health department official said.

With these patients, the number of coronavirus cases in the state rose to 6,180, he said.

Of the fresh cases, 191 were reported from different quarantine centres where returnees from other states are lodged for preliminary observation.

The seven National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel, who had returned from West Bengal after taking part in Cyclone Amphan restoration work, were also in the quarantine facilities and tested positive for COVID-19, while the remaining cases were detected during the contact-tracing exercises, the official said.

A total of 289 personnel of the NDRF, ODRAF and Odisha Fire Service and nine jawans of the Border Security Force have been infected with the virus in the state, he said.

The highest number of 49 fresh cases, excluding the NDRF personnel, were reported from Ganjam district.

Jagatsinghpur (29), Gajapati (27), Bhadrak (25), Khurda (17), Sundergarh (11) and Puri (10) were among the districts where new cases were found.

Ganjam is the worst-hit district with 1,137 cases and the local administration has declared a four-day shutdown in the Berhampur Municipal Corporation area from Saturday, the official said.

A shutdown has been imposed to carry out contact tracing and door-to-door survey, Ganjam District Collector V A Kulange said, adding that 70 teams have been formed for these purposes.

They will examine the health condition of citizens and take stock of the home quarantine status, he said.

However, emergency medical services and milk delivery have been kept out of the purview of the shutdown, the collector said.

The administration of Gajapati district also announced a shutdown in two blocks, one gram panchayat and Parlakhemundi town for three days starting June 28.

With 131 more patients recovering from the disease, Odisha now has 1,734 active coronavirus cases, while a total of 4,291 people have been cured of it.

Seventeen people have succumbed to the disease in the state, while seven persons, who had tested positive for the infection, died due to "non-COVID reasons", the official said.

The state conducted 4,773 COVID-19 tests on Thursday, he added. AAM BDC RBT RC