Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s COVID-19 tally on Friday crossed the 6,000-mark, with 218 more people, including seven NDRF personnel, testing positive for the infection, a Health Department official said.
With these fresh patients, the total number of coronavirus cases in the state rose to 6,180, he said.
Of the fresh cases, 191 were reported from different quarantine centres where returnees have been staying for preliminary observation.
Seven National Disaster Response Force personnel, who had returned from cyclone Amphan restoration work in West Bengal, were also in quarantine facilities and tested positive for COVID-19, while the remaining cases were detected during the contact-tracing exercises, the official said.
A total of 289 personnel of disaster response teams of NDRF, ODRAF and Odisha Fire Service and nine jawans of Border Security Force have been infected with the virus in the state, he said.
The highest number of fresh cases, excluding the NDRF personnel, were reported from Ganjam district at 49.
Jagatsinghpur (29), Gajapati (27), Bhadrak (25), Khurda (17), Sundergarh (11) and Pur (10) were among the districts where new cases were found.
Ganjam is the worst-hit district with 1,137 cases, and the local administration has declared a four-day shutdown in Berhampur Municipal Corporation area from Saturday, the official said.
The shutdown will be imposed to carry out contact tracing and door-to-door survey, district collector V A Kulange said, adding that 70 teams have been formed for these purposes.
They will examine the health condition of citizens and take stock of the home quarantine status, he said.
However, emergency medical services and milk delivery have been kept out of the purview of the shutdown, the collector said.
With fresh patients, Odisha has now 1,865 active cases, while 4,291 people have recovered from the disease.
Seventeen people have succumbed to the disease in the state, while seven others, who had tested positive for the infection, died due to “non-COVID reasons”, the official said.
The state on Thursday conducted 4,773 tests, he added.