A record of 51,255 recoveries have been registered in the country in the last 24 hours. This is the highest number of recoveries in a single day since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country. With this, the recovery rate has improved to 65.43 per cent. The case fatality rate has further declined to 2.13 per cent.

The Health and Family Welfare Ministry said, a total of 11,45,629 people have recovered from COVID-19 in the country so far. 54,735 new cases of Coronavirus have been reported in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 17,50,723. Presently, the total number of active Corona cases in the country is 5,67,730. In a single day, 853 deaths have also been reported taking the nationwide toll to 37,364.

The Indian Council of Medical Research said that a total of 4,63,172 tests were conducted by various laboratories within 24 hours. Overall, 1,98,21,831 tests have been conducted in the country so far. At present, 1,344 laboratories across India are conducting COVID-19 tests that include 913 government laboratories and 431 private laboratory chains.

Meanwhile, in a bid to augment the testing facilities, the Odisha government has allowed private hospitals, nursing homes and laboratories to conduct COVID-19 tests through Rapid Antigen and RT-PCR methods. The government issued a separate set of guidelines for conducting sample tests both under Rapid Antigen and RT-PCR.

The private health establishments have to abide by the ICMR norms.

The sample test results should first be informed to the state authorities before being released to the person whose test was conducted, the notification said.

For Rapid Antigen tests, the private bodies can charge a maximum of 450 rupees, while the price for RT-PCR tests is fixed at 2,200 rupees per test. The nursing homes, hospitals and laboratories should be mandatorily registered under the Odisha Clinical Establishment (control & regulation) Act, 1990.

The manpower to be deployed for the purpose must be trained properly in consultation with the chief district medical and public health officers. In Odisha, chief secretary Asit Tripathy also held a review meeting on COVID 19 situation over a video conference with the district collectors and the chief medical officers. During the discussion, he has advised the senior officers to analyze the COVID situation in districts and redesign strategy to manage the crisis.

The Chief secretary has taken a district-wise review of the extent of the surveillance, testing, availability of COVID care centers, COVID health facilities, and medicines. He has directed the Collectors and CDMOs to make advance arrangements in all these matters. Moreover, Additional Chief Secretary of health and family welfare department Pradipta Mohapatra informed that the state has sufficient stock of testing kits and medicines.

The Collectors were asked to enhance per day sample collection at least to 500. Likewise, the-hot spot districts were asked to ramp-up the sample collection up to thousand per day for early detection and treatment.

They were asked to utilize the antigen test kits and upload the test results in the ICMR portal on a daily basis. The Collectors were also advised to encourage and support plasma collection. In this way, an online portal to facilitate the donors for self-registration will be created by the state government.

The portal will have the details about the availability of the plasma in different banks with their blood groupings. On the other hand, the number of people infected with the coronavirus reached 28,107 in the State. Out of which, 10 thousand 545 are active cases while 17,373 people have recovered from Covid-19 so far.