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In the second wave, Odisha has edged past Bihar to become the third state in the country where the rural districts have contributed the maximum to the daily Covid-19 caseload of the State. The worse fact for the State is rural districts have posted over a 5 per cent rise in the second wave vis-a-vis the first wave peak month.
In contrast, the contribution of urban areas to the daily caseload of the State had seen a rise of a mere 1.7 per cent in April, only to drop down below the share of the first wave peak month. The total daily cases in urban areas in the first wave were 19.6 per cent of the State's caseload per day, the same had first risen to around 21.3 per cent in the month of April during the second wave. However, in the peak month of May, the share declined to 17.7 per cent of the total daily caseload.
Such a prevailing Covid-19 scenario across the urban-rural divide in Odisha has been brought to the fore by a research study of the SBI.
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Odisha In India Covid-19 Map
A detailed glance at the SBI report shows that the rural districts in Chhattisgarh with a share of over 98 per cent of the daily caseload tops the country. Andhra Pradesh with a share of 84 per cent followed it. Rural Odisha by taking a pie of 79.6 per cent in the State's daily caseload rose to the 3rd spot after edging past Bihar (78.5%).
Among the top 3-states, Odisha is the only state that showed a maximum rise in its rural districts. The other two states have recorded a dip vis-a-vis the first wave.
In the indicator of the sharp rise of cases in rural districts during the second wave, Maharashtra leads the table with a near 12 per cent rise. Jharkhand follows with 10 per cent. UP third by virtue of over 7 per cent rise, Odisha and Punjab finished fourth with an over 5 per cent rise (5.1)
COVID19 Rural Spread In Odisha
As per the SBI study, in the first wave, the rural districts took a mammoth 74.5 per cent of the daily caseload in Odisha. When the second wave started in the State in April, the share in daily caseload inched up to touch 75.4 per cent. However, the rise in the peak month of May had been very sharp, as it touched almost 80 per cent (79.6%) of the daily caseload.
"The share in the daily caseload has been calculated based on the 7-days moving average of the daily positive cases," the report observed.
Rural Share In Mortality Burden Up?
Even as the Covid-19 led fatalities in Odisha's rural districts had neither been above the national average nor shown any sharp rise vis-a-vis the first wave. But the SBI report finds that the deaths in the second wave have been higher than the first wave. And here too rural land has been sharing the major burden.
According to the report, while Tier-II cities (Bhubaneswar and Cuttack), haven't recorded any rise in Covid-19 deaths vis-a-vis the first wave, a rise of 0.9 times of the first wave deaths have been recorded in the tier-3 and 4 cities during the second wave in the State.
(Note: Tier-3 and 4 are cities where the urban population is below 50 per cent. Odisha has no tier -1 cities. Only metros are the tier-1 cities in the country.)
