Bhubaneswar: The Covid-19 pandemic seems to be expanding its footprints in Odisha and has so far affected more than 14000 people in the State. Amid a huge influx of migrants from different parts of the country and abroad, the state government too during the initial days claimed of a comprehensive plan in place to battle the crisis, but an uncertain future was always standing at the doorsteps.
Even though a complete shutdown during weekends has been enforced across some critical districts, there is no noticeable change in the COVID scenario.
While earlier most of the cases were being reported from quarantine centres, after the lockdown measures were eased there was a big spike seen in the number of local contact cases which has now raised serious concerns.
Now let's take a look at the Covid picture in July. In just 13 days, the State has reported as many as 6964 cases from various hotspots of which 30.9% cases (2153 patients) are local contacts, excluding the number of frontline corona warriors like doctors, healthcare workers and policemen who have contracted the infection during the same period.
As per the data released by the government, a whopping 4335 people in Ganjam have tested positive for the novel coronavirus (n-CoV) while 43 have succumbed to the virus as of now, making it the worst-affected district in the State. On Tuesday, the district recorded 188 positives among which 171 were found to be local contacts (81 from BeMC) and rest 13 are corona warriors. The local contact cases under Berhampur Municipal Corporation area has also escalated in the last few days.
As per BeMC, a 500-bedded COVID Care Center is being set up near mango market and the facility will specifically be used for cases detected in Berhampur.
Latest reports claim that the State government has also deployed 100 doctors in Ganjam district for effective management of COVID-19.
The situation in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack looks equally worrisome with rising contact cases. As on date, the capital city has reported 769 positives of which 361 have been cured while the fatality count stands at 10.
Similarly, under CMC, a total of 291 persons have tested positive while there has been 7 Covid deaths till date. A few days back, 33 cases were reported from Badamba area which included 2 home quarantine cases and 31 local contacts.
The CMC has shared details of fresh cases detected on Tuesday:
Last week, close to 140 people in steel city Rourkela were detected COVID positive and as per district administration reports, all of them belonging to Sector 16 area had contracted the virus from a single person.
For now, the local authorities in every district need stricter surveillance to minimise the virus transmission through contact.
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