Bhubaneswar: Expressing deep concern over the steady surge in the second wave of Covid-19 across Odisha, State Health Director Bijay Mohapatra cautioned people that the infection will further spread in coming days if they will not be cautious.
“Last year we were able to keep the pandemic in check due to the right kind of preparedness. People should obey the Covid-19 norms strictly again to keep the pandemic at bay,” said Mohapatra.
“The State administration is well prepared to meet any kind of eventualities due to the resurgence of Covid-19 this year. The number of beds at three top medical colleges will be doubled or tripled very soon. All the medicals across the State will have high dependency units,” said Mohapatra adding that Oxygen cylinders will be ramped up ten-fold in the hospitals.
“Efforts are on to provide as many as 555 ventilators to the private medicals in the State. The availability of ventilators in the government medicals will be enhanced from 108 to 423,” added Mohapatra.
Odisha government has demanded at least 25 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines in a single lot from the Centre as it is unable to expedite the ongoing immunisation programme.
Meanwhile, new daily positive cases breached 3K-mark in Odisha today. As per the Health Department data, the State has recorded 3108 new cases in the last 24 hours, the biggest single-day jump of the year.
(Edited by Suryakant Jena)