Bhubaneswar: The second wave of corona virus seems to have hit the State Capital in a big way. With the number of new cases per lakh people in the Smart City taking a leap from over 8 cases per lakh population to around 12.9 today, the City has been designated as a high risk one.
HIGH RISK BHUBANESWAR
With the new case detection remaining above 100 for the last three-days, the incidence of Covid-19 in the Smart City has moved to ‘High Risk’ from ‘Medium-Risk’ in the early days of April.
As per WHO Epidemic incidence norms, if a state or a city report more than 10 cases but less than 25 new Covid-19 cases daily, then the incidence of the coronavirus is considered to be of high risk.
As per the data analysis, the number of daily new cases per lakh people in the Smart City was at around 8.2 (a medium risk incidence), however, since yesterday the new cases detected per lakh people has increased to around 12.9 – which as per WHO epidemic norm is a high-risk city.
THE INFECTION CURVE
The big worry for the Bhubaneswar Municipal Authorities (BMC) is the high Daily Infection Rate (DIR). With a fewer recoveries, the DIR has remained unusually high in the Smart City.
While the DIR at the beginning of April stood at around 10.6 per cent, the same has risen to around 21 per cent by April 4. The DIR today is estimated at 14.3 per cent. The average DIR for the last 7-days is estimated at around 13.7 per cent.
As per WHO, DIR above 1 per cent means the transmission is brisk in the area and large-scale testing is necessary to immediately trace the infected persons.
In contrast, the DIR in Bhubaneswar is in double digits, which is considered very explosive.
HOTSPOTS IN BHUBANESWAR
As in the first wave, in the second wave too, Bhubaneswar had a very high proportion of local contact cases. But the twist in the tale this time around is when during the peak period of first wave in the City, the proportion of local contact case was in the range of 62-69 per cent, the local transmission cases currently remain higher.
The data for the month of March and April reveal that the average proportion has increased to around 78 per cent.
Amidst a higher scale of local transmission, the daily caseload data of BMC reveals big. Though the daily new cases are coming from around 75 per cent of the cityscape, the burden of major caseload is being borne by only 3 localities in the city. They are: Nayapalli, Khandagiri and Old Town.
Data shows since April 1, Bhubaneswar has reported a total of 743 new cases. And the three localities contribute nearly 16 per cent of the total caseload detected since April 1.
Nayapalli locality has contributed as many as 50 new local contact cases since April, Khandagiri follows with a share burden of 44 and Old town chipped in with a figure of 33 during the April first week.
WHY CHALLENGING FOR BMC?
The Covid-19 control was easy in the first wave for BMC as they go for containment zone if a locality had large number of positive cases (Saheed Nagar was declared containment zone with mere 25 cases).
However, the twist now is Centre has directed all states and Civic authorities to go for micro-containment, not containment zones. It’s this which is proving an Achilles hill for the BMC to control the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the city.
THE BOTTOMLINE: Centre has asked all high risk zones to go for widespread RTPCR tests to immediately identify the infected ones and isolate them to break the transmission cycle.