Covid cases come down to double digits in capital city
Bhubaneswar: After more than three months, the number of daily Covid positive cases reported in Bhubaneswar came down to double digit with just 91 cases being reported on Monday. The last time the city reported double digit was on July 22 after which cases surged exponentially.
In October first week, the figure was less than 300, in the second week below 200 and now it is less than hundred, indicating a steady decline. City authorities hope it will go down further like it happened in Ganjam, which for the past one and half months has been reporting a few cases.
On Tuesday, the capital city reported 88 cases against recovery of 230 patients. The number of active cases has gone below 2,000. With 26,607 recoveries and 158 deaths, the city now has 1,996 active cases. The number of patients recovering daily is more than double of the fresh cases. The city’s total Covid count jumped to 28,782.
“The number of fresh Covid cases are on the steady decline. We have not yet reduced sample testing. People are still voluntarily coming to give their swab sample. People’s adherence to Covid norms and enforcement strategies have helped bring the fresh cases down,” said BMC commissioner Prem Chandra Chaudhury.
He said the result of the third phase serological survey will come out on Wednesday, which will reveal the extent of infectivity (apart from the total positive cases) in September among the people here. The last sero survey had indicated formation of antibodies in 5.15% people, which was considered to be very low, in August.
From August 29 to September 9, the positive cases here had fluctuated between 400 and 580. From September 10 till October 10, it had reported 300-odd cases on a daily basis.
Ajay Parida, director, Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) said it is a heartening trend that Bhubaneswar is not reporting large number of cases as it used to report in August and September. “It has come down to double digit. But, we need to be watchful as many people, who had gone to their homes for Dussehra vacation, will return now. They need to go for test even without having any symptom as testing is available so that infected ones can be filtered and isolated to check further spread”, he told TOI.