BHUBANESWAR : Even as Covid-19 cases continue to rise steadily in the State capital, blatant violation of guidelines and weekend shutdown norms has raised concerns of a possible third wave. The weekend shutdown does not seem to be serving its purpose in the city. The South East Zone enforcement squad of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation on Sunday shut down two bars-Pentagon Bar and Hotel and Nasha Bar here on Sunday for violating the norms.
While the city’s residents largely remained indoors during the shutdown earlier, now blatant violation of utter disregard of guidelines meant for their own safety has emerged as a cause of concern. Taking advantage of lax monitoring, over 100 people were seen gathered at a hangout zone near Sishu Bhawan square in the evening. Most in the crowd did not wear masks properly or adhere to the social distancing norms.
BMC officials said there has been a constant rise in the number of active cases for over two weeks as the daily infection count continues to hover over 200. As per the civic body’s statistics, 237 more cases were reported against 183 recoveries in the city during the last 24 hours, pushing the active tally to 3,433.
A BMC official said the increasing number of active cases has become a matter of concern and if the situation is not brought under control, all Covid facilities, shut in June will have to be reactivated. At present, SUM Hospital and KIMS are the only two dedicated hospitals catering to Covid patients in the city with a combined total of around 920 beds. Besides, two more Covid Care Centres with around 100 have also been kept ready for patients with mild symptoms.
“Though occupancy in these hospitals remains less than 50 per cent, the rising infection count may start putting burden on the health infrastructure,” the official said.