COVID spike among Odisha's children despite fall in total cases

Children in Odisha continue to get affected by the coronavirus, despite the total number of new cases dropping to 681 on Saturday from 849 on Friday, a Health Department official told Deccan Herald.

“Among the new cases, 118 of them were children, which is approximately 17.32 per cent of the total. It was 14.13 per cent on Friday,” said the health official.

As of now, Odisha has reported around 10.1 lakh COVID-19 cases with Khurda district reporting the highest number of fresh cases at 222. On the contrary, four districts —Bolangir, Gajapati, Kandhamal and Nuapada — did not report any new case.

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There are 7,186 active cases in the state currently and around 9.95 lakh patients have recovered, 835 of them on Friday itself. Five people died taking the state’s death toll to 8,040.

The new cases were detected after 67,229 samples were examined.