In a clear message to the people of the State, CM Naveen Patnaik today warned that his government will not hesitate in re-imposing complete lockdown if it comes across any violation of Covid appropriate behaviour post the unlock.
The moot point is what has compelled the CM to go on air when the daily confirmed cases in the State is on the downslope. It seems the immediate factor has been the forecasts made by SUTRA model genitor Prof Manindra Agarwal and Cambridge Centre for Health Leadership (CCHL) on likely rise in cases in India from August 15.
The CCHL prediction shows that the daily cases in India are likely to increase to 46,500 per day by 15th August.
It further said, "The effective reproduction number (Rt) has risen to 1.04. The trend value of the growth rate of new cases has turned positive (0.9%). Reported cases are expected to increase in 13 states across the country by varying extents. Growth rates of cases appear to be increasing at the present time in Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand."
Speaking on the same lines, the SUTRA model genitor Agarwal has said, "The seropositivity rate is around 52 per cent at present and pandemic spread over the nearly entire population, there is a long way to go before herd immunity is reached. Therefore, there are now two options available: keep the contact rate low through lockdowns, or allow it to increase further by opening up."
What Should Be the Rt rate?
As per Prof Agarwal, the contact rate need to be brought down to 0.33 -0.35. This number will then prevent the third wave from taking a monstrous form.
It's exactly this looming fear that has compelled the CM Patnaik to go on air, because, the Rt rate in Odisha at present is 0.9. Not a single district in the State has an Rt value of around 0.5. More than half of the districts have an Rt value in the range of 0.9-1.5.
Odisha Forecast
When IIT Kanpur has predicted that, according to the model, the daily cases in Odisha are currently in the decline phase. The effective reproduction number based on the latest data is 0.9. With the current decay rate, Odisha is expected to have about 160 daily cases in two weeks (means by Aug 15), the model forecast of CCHL says, the daily cases in Odisha will be around 1000 by Aug 15.
The CCHL model shows that the growth rate of daily cases in the State which had dipped to around (-) 0.04 per cent on around July 13, picked up to reach around (-) 0.02 per cent after July 15, when the State had lifted weekend shutdown in all category A districts
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