Odisha: Four months of lockdown with no sign of early exit
A deserted view of a road in Bhubaneswar. (File photo, ANI)
BHUBANESWAR: On March 22, the Centre observed the Janata Curfew throughout the country. It was also the day Odisha began its lockdown, three days before the Narendra Modi government announced its nationwide lockdown, and days ahead of other states taking similar action to fight Covid-19.
Despite such proactive measures, the novel coronavirus continues to keep the state administration on tenterhooks, even four months later. From two Covid cases, Odisha’s positive count has now reached 18,757 with the state reporting 103 deaths in the past 120 days. Exerts feel the outcome has been a mixed bag for the state.
While striving for social distancing during the lockdown to check the virus spread, the state took initiative to provide free diagnosis and treatment of Covid-19.
The government tied up with private hospitals and came up with standalone Covid hospitals in public-private-partnership mode, offering free care. The state now has around 6000 hospital beds and 450 ICU beds for Covid, which has ensured patients do not face shortage of hospital beds. The state has also created more than 64,000 beds in Covid care centres and Covid care homes to house patients with no symptoms and mild symptoms.
One of the key reasons cited for having standalone Covid hospitals was to keep the existing hospitals free from infection. But as things stand today, dozens of existing hospitals are shut due to rising cases among healthcare professionals. Premier hospitals such as Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre, Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and AIIMS Bhubaneswar were forced to close their OPDs and restrict patient intake, affecting non-Covid care.
Secondly, the state started registering foreign returnees who came on or after March 4, much before it was done elsewhere, and they were put in quarantine. And those who returned from other states, the government started registering them from May 3 onwards.
“While registering the foreign returnees and their isolation helped contain the spread very effectively, the registration of migrants could not help much. Many migrants may have been infected in the institutional quarantine centres where they were packed in huge numbers,” said Hare Krushna Pradhan, a former consultant with World Health Organization.
“The lockdown in state and in country could have been more scientific from the beginning. Instead of country-wide and state-wide lockdown, the strategy from the very beginning should have been targeting areas reporting positive cases, maintaining a better balance between life and livelihood,” Pradhan added.
While the Centre has started unlock in phases, in the state the lockdown continues in different ways. Currently, while there is complete lockdown in four districts of Khurda, Ganjam, Jajpur and Cuttack as well as Rourkela city. Many districts are following weekend shutdown. Sambalpur has announced a complete shutdown for a week from Wednesday.
Many parts of Koraput and the entire Nabarangpur district are shut for a week from Tuesday.
Dr Siddhartha Sahu, an orthopaedic surgeon, said the outcomes have not quite followed the strategies. “While creating Covid hospitals was a pioneering initiative, not creating enough ICU beds may cost the state dearly. Registering migrants was a good initiative, but not enough tests were done on them,” he said, adding, “Lockdown is always a difficult choice, picking life over livelihood. Hope it benefits the maximum people, save more from the virus and take away fewer jobs.”
Health minister Naba Kishore Das said the state has got benefits from the lockdown. “The effective social distancing measures have helped contain the spread. In hindsight, it is easier to say what could have been done better. But no one really knows much about the pandemic, hence, the strategy to fight it is also evolving every day,” Das said.
Statistically, Odisha is better placed than the national parameters on many aspects though. Compared to the mortality rate of 2.4% at the all-India level, mortality rate in Odisha is 0.54%. Odisha’s positivity rate is 4.67% compared to the national average of 8%.