Representational Image. (File Photo | PTI)
BHUBANESWAR: With the State witnessing a Covid resurgence, Odisha government on Thursday directed the Collectors to increase the number of rapid response teams for monitoring of home isolation cases and allot a small area to each team for intensive surveillance.
Holding a meeting with the Collectors, SPs, superintendents of medical colleges, chief district medical officers (CDMOs) and other district officers through video conferencing, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra advised them to use the rapid response teams for contact tracing and testing.
Issues pertaining to revival of Covid care centres (CCCs), enforcement of Covid appropriate behaviour, dispersing crowd at market places, imposition of night curfew and weekend shutdown in urban areas, ramping up testing and isolation, monitoring of home isolation, closure of educational institutions and coaching centres and district specific micro-management plans were discussed.
Mahapatra made it clear that the district administrations should now singularly focus on containment of coronavirus. Collectors are free to engage any employee from any department in Covid duty as per the Disaster Management Act. All government employees will be under the control of the Collectors so far as Covid containment is concerned. The CDMOs and medical officers were asked to follow the standard operating procedure judiciously for admission and discharge of patients from Covid hospitals.
Additional Chief Secretary of Health Pradipta Mohapatra advised the Collectors to make oxygen arrangements in CCCs for treatment of non-critical patients. The Collectors were asked to involve the Panchayatiraj institutions and village committees in containment of the virus in their respective areas.
