BHUBANESWAR: From the red hot zone on the State’s Covid map, Capital City Bhubaneswar finally seems to have got a grip on the transmission control. Once grappling with a staggering 12,850 active cases, the number dropped to 4,000 while the daily caseload fell below 350 on Monday. The test positivity rate (TPR) of over 20 per cent has since plunged below 9 per cent.
The current TPR 8.7 per cent may still mean the Capital will have to work towards the 5 per cent mark for unlock but augurs well for the City whose Covid-19 burden appears to be easing with adoption of a fresh four-pronged strategy of strengthening Covid helpline, triaging patients, improving surveillance and targeted vaccination drive by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).
In the middle of May, when the daily caseload during peak was in the 1,100-1,200 range, about 80 pc of the total active cases were in home isolation which was a huge concern. The BMC saw a solution for better Covid management with the effective use of the 1929 helpline. As cases exploded and distress calls rose, it decided to bolster the War Room - the 24x7 Covid Control Room - by increasing the number of staff dealing with the helpline response from 12 executives in early May to 48 executives and six supervisors now, manning 35 work stations.
As per BMC statistics, the number of outgoing calls from 1929 has crossed 1.06 lakh mark and 88,658 distressed calls have been attended. The helpline is now being used as a multi-tasking platform - from helping shifting of patients in home isolation to hospitals to registration of beneficiaries for doorstep sample collection and vaccination.
A key move was to categorise patients under home isolation into two groups. Patients with no or mild symptoms were flagged as green, while moderately-affected ones were tagged in the red category whose health parameters were tracked daily. A total of 2,312 red flag cases have been identified by the civic body since May 20. Around 67 Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) comprising doctors and frontline workers have been engaged to track patients in home isolation. Besides, 10 doctors are allotted to each BMC zone to monitor health conditions of patients in home isolation and Covid suspects.
“This helped BMC to attend the people in home isolation, address their anxiety and the same time, reduce the load on Covid hospitals as over 2,000 beds including 125 ICU beds are vacant. Oxygen concentrators have been provided to 50 mild symptomatic patients in home isolation,” says Municipal Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh who took charge about a month back at a critical juncture.
Another strategy was to take Covid testing to newer segments as BMC sent in teams to markets and slums to collect samples on a random basis.However, BMC kept an eye on the post unlock period as it planned targeted vaccination to bring down the infection rate.
“BMC is perhaps one of the first civic bodies to take such a move in the country. Apart from vaccinating the 45+ and 18-44 age group beneficiaries, we have carried out targeted vaccination drives for vulnerable groups on a large scale,” Singh said. From hotel and restaurant staff to delivery partners of food aggregators, BMC is vaccinating every group that is vulnerable to get infected and spread the infection.
“Now we are in the process of vaccinating staff of OLA, Uber, Flipkart, Amazon and many such firms. There will also be vaccination of employees in the seafood and apparel sector who work in large numbers at one place,” the Municipal Commissioner said and added that their efforts to vaccinate senior citizens in old age homes and other vulnerable groups have also been successful.
“Our idea is not just to fight Covid-19 but to be prepared for the situation after the lockdown is lifted. If the targeted population is vaccinated by then, it will be more effective on our part to fight the pandemic,” he said.
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