Pradeep Pattanayak

The Centre has advised Odisha and the other states to strictly follow a five-fold strategy to curb the spread of Omicron, the new variant of coronavirus.

A high level virtual meeting between the Centre and states was held on Thursday. In Odisha, the meeting was attended by the Health Secretary and other officials. The meeting discussed Omicron situations in states. In the meeting, the Centre asked the states to enforce a five-fold strategy to keep the disease at bay.

The five-fold plan include

  • Keep a strict vigil on those who are returning from foreign countries
  • Intensify the enforcement of Covid protocols
  • Lay emphasis on testing
  • Give importance to vaccination
  • Treatment

So far, 1,134 foreign returnees to Odisha have registered in the ‘Air Subidha’ portal. Of them, four—two each from Jajpur and Sundargarh districts—have tested positive for Covid-19. Their samples have been sent for genome sequencing.

Meanwhile, the district administrations are facing the problems in tracing out the returnees. Most of them have gone incommunicado after providing wrong addresses and phone numbers.

Notably, Odisha on Thursday reported 195 Covid-19 positive cases, including 24 from 0-18 age group, taking the cumulative positive tally to 10,50,955. Khordha district reported maximum 99 cases. At the same time, 264 patients recovered from the disease, pushing the total number of recoveries to 10,40,403. The number of active cases stands at 2.071.

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