Bhubaneswar: Odisha today registered the sharpest rise in Omicron cases as 23 more persons tested positive for the variant of COVID-19, taking the tally in the state to 37.

While 11 of them are returnees from Finland, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Syria, 10 are local cases, and remaining two are contacts of Finland returnees.

All of them had tested positive for COVID-19 while the samples were sent to the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar to ascertain the variant of the virus.

Genome sequencing conducted at the ILS gave confirmation for the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Odisha had on December 21 reported the first case of Omicron with two foreign returnees (Nigeria and Qatar) testing positive for the variant.

Odisha today registered a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases as 424 more persons, including 67 children below 18 years of age, tested positive for the virus during the last 24 hours. The daily COVID-19 cases figure was 298 yesterday.

Out of the 424 cases, 249 were detected in quarantine while 175 are local contact cases.

Khurda district reported highest 177 new cases, followed by Cuttack (45) and Sundargarh (38).

The Test Positivity Rate (TPR) for the day stood at 0.68% as 61,652 samples were tested in the state.

With this, the COVID-19 tally in the state reached 1055556 with 2078 active cases.

Below are district-wise figures of fresh infections.

1. Balasore: 8
2. Bargarh: 10
3. Balangir: 1
4. Boudh: 1
5. Cuttack: 45
6. Dhenkanal: 3
7. Ganjam: 4
8. Jagatsinghpur: 8
9. Jajpur: 9
10. Jharsuguda: 15
11. Kalahandi: 2
12. Kendrapara: 1
13. Keonjhar: 14
14. Khurda: 177
15. Mayurbhanj: 8
16. Nabarangpur: 7
17. Puri: 14
18. Rayagada: 4
19. Sambalpur: 15
20. Sundargarh: 38
21. State Pool: 40