Odisha has registered a highest single day spike in COVID-19 positive cases with the detection of 20 new cases, pushing its total to 205, the State Health & Family Welfare Department said on Thursday morning.
The total number of cases, which was 185 till midnight on Wednesday, increased overnight to 205 with 17 new cases being reported from migration-prone Ganjam district and three from Mayurbhanj.
Ganjam district has emerged as the latest hotspot in the State with a total of 21 cases being reported in less than a week. The first two cases in the district were detected on May 2.
All the 21 cases in Ganjam were among the migrant workers who returned from Surat in Gujarat over the last few weeks by buses and trains.
The three people found positive in Mayurbhanj district too had returned from Surat, according to the Health Department.
Meanwhile, the administration swung into action and shifted those who were found positive from their respective quarantine centres to the nearest exclusive COVID-19 hospitals.
The State government has been putting all the Odia people returning from other States in the quarantine centres set up at the gram panchayat level across the State.
5 lakh to return
About five lakh people are expected to return from other States during the coming few weeks. More than 35,000 migrants had already returned by Wednesday, according to the State government.
The State, which initially detected infections in those who returned from other countries, had subsequently found some cases among those who came back after attending the Tablighi Jamaat event at Nizamuddin in Delhi.
The trend changed with positive cases surfacing among those who had 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 closer to West Bengal reported nearly 100 of the total cases. A majority of them were West Bengal returnees and their contacts in the villages.
Barring two people who returned to Balangir district from Tamil Nadu testing positive, the State has been detecting new cases among those who returned from Surat recently. Four Surat returnees were found positive in Jagatsinghpur on Wednesday.
