Odisha registered the highest single day spike in COVID-19 positive cases with detection of 34 cases pushing its total to 219 on Thursday.
Of the 34 cases — 24 including a woman in Ganjam district, four in Mayurbhanj district and two in Balasore district — were those who returned from Surat recently. A West Bengal returnee was found positive in the Jagatsinghpur district.
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Three new cases were detected in three different locations in Bhubaneswar city and a West Bengal returnee was found positive in Jagatsinghpur district. The capital had reported 47 cases earlier.
The migration-prone Ganjam district was converted into a red zone since it had reported 36 cases in less than a week. The first two persons detected in the district on May 2 had also returned from Surat.
Of the 219 cases, 155 were undergoing treatment at different exclusive COVID-19 hospitals while 62 persons had recovered and two had died.
Odisha is expecting five lakh people to return in the coming weeks. More than 39,000 of the migrants had returned by Thursday, according to officials.
The State government has been putting all those returning at quarantine centres set up at the gram panchayat level.
It announced it would increase its testing capacity. The State is testing more than 3,000 samples per day with 50,514 samples being tested by midnight on Wednesday.
While samples were being tested at eight laboratories, the State government is taking measures to set up testing facilities at 11 more places in different regions soon, officials said.
The State, which initially detected COVID-19 infections in those who came from other countries, had subsequently found several among those who returned after attending the Tablighi Jamaat event at Nizamuddin in Delhi.
The trend changed when the State started detecting positive cases among those who managed to return from neighbouring West Bengal during the lockdown period taking advantage of the porous borders.
During the past few weeks, the three districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur that are close to West Bengal have reported nearly 100 cases. A majority of them were West Bengal returnees and their contacts in the villages.
However, barring two cases of those who recently returned to the Balangir district from Tamil Nadu, the State has been detecting more cases among those who have returned from Surat during the past few days. Four Surat returnees were found positive for COVID-19 in Jagatsinghpur district on Wednesday.
