Bhubaneswar: Has the ongoing lockdown helped in minimising the spread of coronavirus? While we can strike a positive note on the COVID-19 situation in 27 districts of Odisha, the rest three- Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore- which are currently under shutdown reportedly seem to have failed in cutting the transmission of the lethal virus.
As on April 25 midnight, these 3 districts have registered 44 positive cases, 33 of which were detected in just a span of one week. While Bhubaneswar, Kendrapara and Sundergarh currently have 23, 1 and 3 active cases respectively, Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore combinedly account for 60 per cent (41/68) of the total active cases.
As is visible, the number has gone up exponentially within a few days of case-discovery in these 3 hotspots.
Odisha reported its first COVID case on March 15 and it took around 26 days to reach the 50 mark. The next 50 cases spiraled in just 15 days, at an average of over 3 cases every single day. The alarming fact is in the last six days, cases have risen at a pace of 7 per day (42 in last 6 days) mainly from Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore.
[caption id="attachment_447417" align="aligncenter" width="616"]
Now digest this. On April 18, Balasore detected its first COVID case (patient-61) after a 58-year-old man from Neliabag was tested positive. The patient has been tagged as a super-spreader, for, he not only visited five different hospitals in Odisha between April 7 and April 16, but was also found to have infected 7 others from his village. Reportedly, Patient No. 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 88 and 89, happen to be close contacts of Patient-61 of Balasore. Similarly, case 73 from Jajpur has contaminated many others.
Another startling revelation is there are around 2900 West Bengal returnees spread across 29 of the 30 districts in Odisha. Such a report came to the fore after one of the telecom service providers initiated mobile tracking to trace persons who visited or have returned from WB during enforcement of lockdown.
Housing 772 Bengal returnees as per location tracing, Balasore district tops the list, followed by 329 in Jajpur and 242 in Bhadrak district. Koraput district, on the other hand, has 43 returnees of which 21 have been tracked as of now.
The State has, so far, conducted 22816 RT PCR tests apart from 4975 rapid antibody tests. While there are 68 active COVID-19 cases, 34 have been cured while one person has succumbed to the disease.
The tally of positives touched 100 mark on Saturday after Jajpur detected six new confirmed cases. Sunday morning, H&FW department mentioned about detection of three more cases from Sundergarh, which was declared COVID-free just a few hours ago.
What's encouraging here is of the 10 districts where COVID-19 positive cases were detected, 4 districts reportedly Kalahandi, Cuttack, Puri and Dhenkanal now have no active cases. Moreover, all the active cases are stable and expected to recover well, stated Health & Family Welfare department on Saturday.
As far as the preparedness is concerned in terms of infrastructure, the number of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals in Odisha has increased to 33 with a capacity of 5476 isolation beds and this is augmented everyday.