State’s Covid count crosses century in one day

Bhubaneswar: In the biggest jump of Covid-19 infections, the state on Wednesday registered 101 positive cases, 90 of those having returned from other states. With this, the total number of positive cases went up to 538. While 52 cases were reported from Ganjam, 33 were from Balasore, seven each from Jajpur and Sundargarh and two from Keonjhar.
Special relief commissioner Pradeep Kumar Jena said the spurt in positive cases was not unexpected as a lot of people are returning from some of the worst affected areas. “But it should not be a cause of concern because all the returnees are in quarantine centres and have not come in contact with the local people,” Jena said.
Since May 3, the state has received more than 70,000 migrant workers who have returned in 37 trains and around 400 buses. During this period the state witnessed 376 cases, more than 300 of them being returnees from states like Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, government authorities said. Ganjam district alone has reported 210 cases, all migrants and mostly from Surat in Gujarat.
Experts sounded a note of caution in view of the rising cases. “With so many people returning, their monitoring will be a massive task for the government,” said Bramhadev Pattnaik, a virologist and director of One Health Centre for Surveillance and Disease Dynamics in AIPH University, Bhubaneswar.
“Apart from taking swab samples for tests, the government should collect their blood samples and preserve the serum so that whenever an authentic antibody test is available, these can be tested to understand the extent of infection and bigger public health fallout,” Pattnaik suggested.
After reporting the first positive case on March 15, cases in the state touched 100 after 40 days on April 20. The state added the next 100 in 11 days (May 6) and within the next three days, it crossed 300. It took another three days to cross 400 and just one day to go over 500.
Meanwhile, Bhubaneswar city, which is a red zone and had witnessed a spurt in positive cases in March-April, has reasons to cheer. The state capital, which reported 50 infected people, is left with only three active cases. While 45 have recovered, two have died. The third death was reported from Ganjam district.
The state has set up around 14,000 quarantine centres, at least one in each of the 6,798 panchayats. The government says these can accommodate around 5.5 lakh people. The government has decided a four-week isolation period for the returnees, first three weeks in the quarantine centres and another week at home.
EoM
Inspired By