Can Lockdown Be Kept At Bay In Odisha?

No one wants it. Not the Centre, not the state and certainly not the public. But the way the Covid graph has skyrocketed over the last four weeks, the state…

Odisha Lockdown

No one wants it. Not the Centre, not the state and certainly not the public. But the way the Covid graph has skyrocketed over the last four weeks, the state government may be left with little option but to resort to a prolonged spell of lockdown in a few days’ time, whether anyone wants it or not.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to states to resort to lockdown only as a last resort and focus on localised containment zones instead. On his part, Chief minister Naveen Patnaik has repeatedly appealed to the people to strictly follow the Covid protocol so as to prevent the return of lockdown. But neither the CM’s appeal nor the dire warnings of health experts appear to have had much of an impact on the people, for whom it appears to be business as usual. Many people still don’t wear masks. And a majority of those who do have their masks dangling from the chin instead of covering the nose as it should.