After a gap of over six months, Odisha on Wednesday did not report any fresh fatality due to COVID-19, while 231 new cases pushed the state's caseload to 3,30,921, a health official said.
As many as 133 new cases were reported in quarantine centres, while 98 infections were detected during contact tracing, he said.
Sundergarh district reported the highest number of new cases at 32, followed by Bargarh (25) and Angul (21), the official said.
"Happy to share that after over six months, there are no COVID deaths reported in the state on 5th January, 2021. We salute our COVID Warriors whose tireless efforts have made this possible," the state Health Department tweeted.
The state's coronavirus death toll remained unchanged at 1,887.
Khurda district, under which Bhubaneswar falls, has so far reported the highest number of COVID-19 deaths at 326, followed by Ganjam (247), Sundergarh (169), Cuttack (140) and Puri (117), the health official said.
Fifty-three coronavirus patients have died to comorbidities so far, he said.
The state had reported its first COVID-19 fatality on April 7 last year when a 72-year-old man from Bhubaneswar succumbed to the infection.
Odisha now has 2,203 active coronavirus cases, while 3,26,778 people have recovered from the infection so far.
The state has so far tested over 70.65 lakh samples for COVID-19, including 20,195 on Tuesday, he added.
