Covid active cases in Odisha touch 82, 17 on Friday

Bureau,Odishabarta

Bhubaneswar: Odisha reported nine more COVID infections in the last 24 hours, taking the total active cases to 82 on Saturday, according to the Union Health Ministry data. On Friday, the state had seen 17 fresh cases, highest in 134 days with one needing hospitalisation.

The state has been testing more than 5,000 samples daily ever since the daily COVID count shot to double digits on March 16 and 17 for the first time after a gap of around four months. For the two consecutive day, the state had reported 11 new cases each.

“We have increased the testing number to put more people under surveillance. The COVID pandemic not yet over. In some mutated form the virus will keep affecting us but there is no need to panic,” Public Health director Niranjan Mishra said.

People with mild to severe body ache, runny nose, some stiffness, sneezing and mild to high fever as well are also getting the test done to rule out if they have COVID or H3N2 infection since symptoms in both cases are more or less the same.

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