Bhubaneswar: With steep hike in number of COVID-19 cases in Odisha, the state's tally may surpass 10,000 mark next month, said Health and Family Welfare department spokesperson Dr Jayant Panda.

He said that the susceptible–infected–recovered (SIR) model and key metric of the rate of infection of coronavirus called as R0 estimated that the number of positive cases of COVID-19 in Odisha may surge to 10,000 in the month of June.

However, the number of fatality will remain within 100 in the state, Dr Panda said.

According to the US-based Johns Hopkins University, the number of infections may reach 2.5 lakh by the month of July with 5,000 corona deaths in India.

However, the estimates could be turned out to be false if the lockdown norms and social distancing guidelines will be strictly followed, Dr Panda said.

In the mealtime, the number of positive cases could be more than estimates by Johns Hopkins and other models if the flight services, railways, bus services will resume and schools and offices remain functional affecting the social distancing, he warned adding that the number of COVID patients may rise under such situation but there will be minimal rise in deaths related to coronavirus.

With functioning of all the services in the country as well as in the state, most of the cases will be found asymptomatic, Dr Panda said.