Bhubaneswar, Aug 29 (PTI) Odisha registered its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 deaths on Saturday as 14 patients succumbed to the infection, while 3,252 new cases pushed the state's coronavirus tally towards the one lakh- mark, a health official said.

The fresh fatalities took Odisha's coronavirus death toll 470, while the new cases pushed the state's tally to 97,920, he said.

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As many as 2,880 people were cured of the disease, taking the total number of recoveries to 70,714, the official said.

The recovery rate among the COVID-19 patients in the state improved to 72.21 per cent from Friday's 71.64 per cent, he said.

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The fatality rate has also come down to 0.47 per cent from 0.48 per cent despite the death of 14 patients during the day, the official said.

Two fatalities each were registered in Balasore, Khurda, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur and Malkangiri districts and one each in Bargarh, Jajpur, Puri and Sundergarh, he said.

Fifty-three COVID-19 patients have so far died in the state due to other ailments, he said.

Khurda district, under which Bhubaneswar falls, reported the highest number of new cases at 762, followed by Rayagada (450), Cuttack (332) and Ganjam (169), the official said.

As many as 1,987 new cases were detected in quarantine centres, while 1,265 people tested positive for the infection during contact tracing, he said.

The fresh infections have pushed the number of active COVID-19 cases in the state to 26,638, the official said.

A total of 16,70,910 samples have been tested for COVID-19 so far, including 58,813 on Saturday, he added.

People who have completed institutional quarantine are being given Rs 2,000 each from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund, a statement said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)