Bhubaneswar: The Covid-19 scenario in Odisha doesn't look alarming on Tuesday. Post recording State's first Covid-19 positive on Sunday, the big news of comfort is all the contacts of the Covid-19 positive have been quarantined and under observation.
More assuring fact surfaced today is till date no flu or pneumonia like symptoms have been observed in the 53 contacts under quarantine.
In the regular briefing on Covid-19 scenario in Odisha here, to a specific query on count of contacts traced in the State post reporting of a positive case and the status of 53 contacts, the chief spokesperson on Covid-19 and OSDA Chairperson, Subroto Bagchi, claimed all is well.
"The health condition of the Covid-19 positive is stable. The patient is now taking diet. There is no addition to 53 contacts traced on Monday. And above all, none have yet shown any flu/pneumonia like symptoms," claimed Bagchi. He added of 32 samples tested so far in Odisha, only one positive has been detected.
However, as per history of the disease and experts' analysis, since symptoms manifest after 14 -days, and as they were in contact with a virus shedding person, the situation will get clear towards the end of this month only. But the big achievement is cycle of transmission has been disrupted.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 helpline launched by the Odisha government yesterday received an overwhelming response.
As per information shared by Bagchi, as many as 1,239 foreign-returned persons have registered in the last 24-hours. The break-wise data shows when toll free number 104 had received 554 calls, a high of 685 logged on to the website covid19.odisha.gov.in.
The State government has expressed its gratitude to the gesture shown by Puri Gajapati and his family. Post returning from US, the royal family has put themselves under home-quarantine, and they have also registered themselves in the web portal notified by odisha government.
Senior IAS Vineel Krishna has also informed of registering himself in the newly launched web portal for persons having foreign travel history.
However, State government's newly launched helpline crashed on the day one. Many faced hurdles in registration.
Acknowledging the teething problems, Bagchi informed that capacity augmentation of the helpline facility will be done in a big way under the chairmanship of SJTA chairperson and senior IAS Krishna Kumar.
Other Important decisions announced are:
* Private hospitals have been directed to open Covid-19 corner and regulate flow of visitors to the hospitals.
*Malls will remain closed but not the food, groceries, essential commodities and medicine stalls housed in the malls.
*5.75 lakh tribal students residing in ashram school hostels will remain so till further orders.
*Door step ration delivery to elderly and vulnerable households. Biometric authentication not mandatory.
*3-day awareness and training session at panchayat level from March 19.
*Appealed people to wash their mobiles 3-4 times a day in a light soap water.