Bhubaneswar: With a sudden surge in COVID cases in the state capital, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Saturday clarified that the rise in cases was due to increased number of testing that has risen to 30 per cent over past 10 days.
The BMC until Tuesday reported 190 new cases, raising the city’s tally of COVID cases to 3,763. Out of these, 1,262 cases have been detected over last 10 days. Moreover, out of the total active cases, 207 are from slum areas and more than 37 cases are being reported from five major slums of which Kancha Sahi has the highest 21 cases.
Addressing the media, BMC Commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhary said, “Testing in the city has increased by 30% and this has helped in larger detection of the infection. On July 29th, only 1749 tests were carried out which detected 105 positives. However, 2285 tests were done, August 7 which detected 190 cases.”
Chaudhary also mentioned that testing teams have gone up to 13 to meet the increased rate of testing. However, the commissioner also said that the civic authorities are facing challenges with people not coming forward for testing. “We have allowed most cases for home quarantines and in critical cases we have immediately shifted people to COVID hospitals. Thus, people should not panic and come ahead for testing,” he requested.
Meanwhile, speaking over the improved recovery rate, Chaudhary has stated a 13% improvement in recovery cases over last 10 days. As per the latest information, the city has 2360 recovered and 1383 active cases out of 3763 cases.
“The recovery rate stood only 50 per cent until 10 days ago, however, it now stands at 63.16%,” the commissioner said. “Moreover, 327 out of 515 are cured in home isolation cases. And recovery rate stands at 60.11%,” he added.
