Odisha reports over 6000 new covid cases on second day today, eight more succumb to the virus

Bhubaneswar : For the second day today Odisha reported over 6000 covid positive cases pushing the total tally in the state to 3,99,694 while death toll surged to 1973 with eight fresh deaths reported in the past 24 hours.

Health and Family Welfare Department sources said 6215 new covid cases were reported from 30 districts in the past 24 hours and state pools which included 3604 from the quarantine centres and 2611 local contact cases.

At the same time eight covid patients, two each from Ganjam and Kalahandi district and one each from Balasore,Bolangir,Kandhamal and Khordha district succumbed to the virus while undergoing treatment in hospital.

With the rise of the covid cases, the state government today tightened the security to prevent the entry of people from bordering West Bengal and erected as many as 44 points in Balasore and Mayurbhanj districts to prevent the illegal entry of the people into the state.

Anticipating that the people from the bordering West Bengal might take the sea route to enter into Odisha , the government alerted all the 18 marine police stations and fish landing point to keep a strict vigil on the boats entering into the Odisha coast.

Additional Director General of Police P Acharya said ifny boats found entering into the Odisha coast illegally would be confiscated and action would be taken against the trespassers as per the law.

The state government has made it mandatory for 14 days institutional quarantine or paid quarantine for all the people coming from West Bengal to Odisha in view of triple mutants of the virus reported from West Bengal and other states.

Those who have the RT-PCR negative test prior to 48 hours of entry into the state or final certificate of vaccination, would be asked to remain home quarantine for 14 days. However, ISL Director Ajaya Parida today clarified that so far no triple mutant has been reported in the state .

The government had already tightened check posts bordering Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and prevented the entry of the people from these states to Odisha .

Official sources said out of 6215 new covid cases, Khordha district accounted for a maximum 950 cases followed by Sundargarh ( 684),Kalahandi ( 682), Nuapada (446),Cuttack ( 383),Puri (306 ).
All the urban areas in the state will have weekend shutdowns from tomorrow morning till Monday morning besides the night curfew in the other five days to contain the spread of virus.

Odisha Special Relief Commissioner P K Jena said there would be an hour relaxation between 5 AM to 6 AM in the weekend shutdown for the morning walkers and cycling.

Meanwhile, State Health Director Bijaya Panigrahi said so far 54.41 lakh people in the state have been vaccinated.The government, he said, has suspended vaccination programme on weekends on Saturday and Sunday due to shut down clamped in all urban areas across the state.

He said the government has decided to enhance the testing to 50,000 every day.

To a question, the Health Director said so far only 50 people who have been vaccinated found to be infected with the coronavirus .However,there is no report of any persons being infected with the virus after taking all the two doses.

About Post Author