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Odisha's COVID-19 tally on Saturday surged to 9,37,470 after 2,334 more people tested positive for the infection, while 58 fresh fatalities pushed the toll to 4,534, a health department official said.
Of the 2,334 new cases, 1,342 were recorded in quarantine centres and 992 detected during contact tracing, the official said.
Khurda district, of which Bhubaneswar is a part, reported the maximum number of new cases at 380, followed by Cuttack at 371, and Kendrapara at 196.
Eight of the state's 30 districts reported new cases each in triple digits.
Eleven fresh fatalities were reported from Khurda, seven each from Bargarh and Puri, six each from Ganjam and Sundergarh, four from Sambalpur, three from Kendrapara and two each from Cuttack, Dhenkanal, Keonjhar and Naygarh.
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One each succumbed to the infection in Angul, Gajapati, Jajpur, Jharsuguda, Kalahandi, Mayurbhanj.
This apart, 53 COVID-19 patients in the state have died due to comorbidities.
Amid allegations that the state government was suppressing casualty figures, the health department, in a statement, said, "The list does not reflect deaths that have occurred on a particular day. It gives details of past deaths for which the audit process has been duly completed and the causeidentified as COVID-19."
Odisha currently has 26,364 active cases, while as many as 9,06,519 patients, including 3,341 on Friday, have recovered from the highly infectious disease. The coastal state's positivity rate stands at 6.46 per cent.
Over 1.44 crore samples have been tested for COVID-19 in Odisha thus far, the official added.
Meanwhile, due to the dearth of COVID-19 vaccines, the government on Saturday stopped the inoculation drive in 10 districts -- Balasore, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Kalahandi, Nuapada Kendrapara, Koraput, Malkangiri, Nayagarh and Sonepur.
The state, at present, has 59,920 doses of Covishield and 3,93,010 shots of Covaxin.
In accordance with the Centre's directive, the government has decided to vaccinate patients housed in mental health establishments, officials said.
The health department has written to all district collectors and municipal commissioners, asking them to personally monitor and ensure vaccination of inmates at mental health institutions.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
