Bhubaneswar: In view of the resurgence of coronavirus infection across Odisha including the Capital City, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday decided to reopen the Aditya Ashwini Covid-19 hospital to accommodate the growing number of patients.
The 150-bed hospital, equipped with Intensive Care Units (ICU) facilities, will start functioning from today.
Meanwhile, the number of beds at the SUM Covid-19 Hospital have been increased from the existing 250 to 500. A 60-bed Covid-19 care center in Patia and another 45-bed center in Dumduma are also in the offing.
BMC sources said that as many as three quarantine centers have been set up at Ghatikia, Gajapati Nagar and KIIT, respectively. As many as 4o beds in OYO hotels have been identified to be used as paid quarantine and isolation facilities.
The move comes in the backdrop of the second wave of Covid-19 which has gripped several parts of the country and the State. Under such circumstances, it is estimated that there will be a need for large numbers of quarantine and isolation facilities for housing suspected Covid-19 cases, asymptomatic, mild symptomatic positive cases in order to contain the spread.
The Covid-19 single-day cases in Odisha breached 2000-mark today for the first time in 2021 when as many as 2267 persons tested positive and three patients succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours.
While seven districts registered three-digit figures, Sundargarh district topped the list with 458 cases, followed by Khordha (348), Sambalpur (120), Bargarh (120), Cuttack (117), Nuapada (104) and Nabarangpur (104).