BHUBANESWAR: As daily case count of the State Capital hovers over 1,500 for the last two days, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday kept four more healthcare facilities in readiness to reduce burden on dedicated Covid hospitals (DCHs).
The hospitals including Sparsh, KIDS, Sanjivani and Blue Wheel have a combined bed strength of around 600. Currently, the city has 1,800 Covid beds in three DCHs and two Covid Care Centres.
Though only 22 percent of these beds have been occupied, BMC deputy commissioner for health and sanitation Suvendu Kumar Sahoo said that the new hospitals have been kept in readiness for their use to reduce load on the existing DCHs, if cases continue to surge in the Capital.
“The 600 beds will increase the strength of Covid beds in the city to 2,400. We have resources to increase the bed strength to 4,000 if required,” Sahoo said.
Meanwhile, the infection count breached the 1,500 mark for the second consecutive day pushing the daily Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of the city to over 23 per cent on Saturday.
The Capital City reported another 1,532 cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day spike recorded in the city so far. The TPR also stood at 23.67 per cent, a jump of around 5 per cent from the previous day.