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Bhubaneswar: The corona crisis in Odisha is getting bigger day by day. The rising count and footprint of COVID-19 in the State have put a stress on some basic corona indicators. The major trend observed today is doubling time in Odisha has shrunk to 11 days from 13 days in mid-April. Now, corona footprint is seen in nearly half of the State (14 districts).
More worrying corona lines on state's forehead are, daily recovery growth rate has shown a dip. And days of hospitalisation of COVID patients are getting bigger, of late.
On April 3, the COVID count breezed past the 15 mark, and on April 5, novel coronavirus positives in the State crossed the 30 mark. The 60-count was scored on April 18 and the tally of 120 breached on April 29. COVID took only 11 days to double today from 13 days earlier.
The average doubling rate for the State in March stood at around 10-days. In April, the same rate stood at around 9-days.
Another emerging worry for the State is a dip in growth rate of COVID recoveries in the State.
Consider this. The recovery rate on April 21 stood at a high of 20 per cent. The rate gradually declined to 2.7 per cent on April 28.
Odisha first saw COVID recovery case on April 2. But a surge in recoveries was witnessed on April 10, when state recorded 12 recoveries in 24 hours. The second spike was recorded on April 12 when 6 recoveries were reported on a single day. And third high was recorded on April 21, when 5 COVID positives tested doubly COVID negative.
The time line shows not only recovery count posted a decline (from 12 to 5), but the duration of surge also was longer. During April 10-12, state recorded two spike in recoveries. But from April 12-29, the surge spike is recorded only once.
Since recoveries are getting delayed, this indicator has a direct co-relation with the hospital stay of corona positives. The hospital stay of corona positives in the State is currently estimated at 9.2 days from around 8 days in mid-April.
In fact, the first two Odisha COVID patient's hospital stay was estimated at 17 and 14 days, respectively. By mid-April, the hospital stay dropped to around 8 days.
In the given context, when the lockdown is going to exit from the state on May 3, a prediction by IIT researchers portrays an emerging scary scenario for Odisha.
The IIT-Delhi researcher team's predictions show the COVID count in the State has the potential to cross the 400-mark in May to touch 439 by May 13, when there will be no lockdown within a district.
The meaning of no lockdown within a district is returning back to the pre-lockdown level in any district.
As per a group of researchers from M3RG, IIT Delhi, removal of restrictions on movement of traffic completely will fan the transmission of the virus. And consequently, the cases will grow.
Odisha has recorded as many as 120 COVID positives during the lockdown period, when restrictions were in place.
For instance, Bhubaneswar, which was State's top hotspot with 46 cases, has a reproduction number (Ro) value of mere 0.4 which means a COVID positive in Bhubaneswar failed to infect even one person directly.
This need to be seen in the context of type of restrictions that were imposed by the State government - from lockdown to 48-hour shutdown and the containment zones et al.
The projection for Odisha is made by a group of volunteers from M3RG, IIT Delhi, namely, Hargun Singh Grover (UG), Ravinder (PhD), Amreen Jan (Postdoc), Sourabh Singh (UG), Suresh Bishnoi (UG), and Prof. N. M. Anoop Krishnan (PI), in collaboration with Prof. Hariprasad Kodamana (CAPS, IITD), and Prof. Amit Sharma (ICGEB, New Delhi).
