The rapid rise in COVID-19 cases goes unabated as the State on Thursday reported 10,056 cases, the biggest spike in the past eight months, with an almost 15% rise in the last 24 hours, 12.40% test positivity rate, and a weekly growth estimated at an alarming 372%.

Side by side with the daily tally breaching the 10,000 mark, the State’s cumulative caseload crossed the 11 lakh mark. Of the new infectees, 409 are between 0-18 years of age, said health authorities on Thursday.

The exponential growth rate has become a cause of concern and this was not the case during the peak of the second wave last year.

The high TPR in seven to eight districts particularly in Khordha and Sundargarh is a matter of concern. The State had last reported over 10,000 cases on 25 May last year with 11,623 positive cases while yesterday 8,778 infections were recorded.

However, the optimistic turn of events lies in the fact that the health condition of the majority of the new infectees is stable and the severity of the infection is largely less severe than those infected by the delta variant in the second wave. The bed occupancy of the Covid care hospitals is also currently abysmally low, the public health experts said..

The disconcerting feature of today’s Covid trajectory lies in the fact that the test positivity rate is on an upswing on a daily basis.

The new infections pushed the cumulative tally to 11,01,606 while 170 cases of Omicron mutant variants have been detected in the State so far. Khordha district reported a maximum of 3,188 cases, followed by Sundergarh (1348),  Cuttack (870), and Sambalpur (570), the health authorities said on Thursday.

All the 30 districts in the State currently have active cases while Khordha, Sundargarh, Sambalpur, and Cuttack with over 2,000 active cases are placed in the red zone. Four other districts with above 1,000 active cases are bracketed in the yellow zone category.

The state currently has 44,349 active COVID-19 cases while 10,48,732 patients including 949 on Wednesday recovering from the disease.

As 10,056 samples gave positive results out of 81,065 samples tested on Thursday, the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) stood at 12.40 percent against the previous day’s 11.77%.

The State’s recovery rate currently stands at 95.20% while active cases account for 4.02% of total positive cases registered in the State.

The State’s share is 3.1% in the country’s confirmed virus caseload while the active cases are 7.51% of India’s total active cases. The number of cured patients accounts for 3.04% of the country’s total recovery. Odisha has so far reported 1.75% of the country’s Coronavirus deaths.

The state’s health authorities have so far administered 5,25,35,282 COVID-19 vaccine doses while 2,21,11,013 people out of 3.09 crore eligible adult population are fully vaccinated. Nearly 72% of the eligible population has so far received both doses of vaccine.