BHUBANESWAR: Asymptomatic cases and discovery of coronavirus infection in persons even after the 14-day quarantine or isolation period has posed a conundrum for the Government, underlining an urgent need to redefine efforts for containing spread of COVID-19 in the State.
While asymptomatic cases constitute almost the bulk of COVID-19 cases in the State, the pattern has led to serious concerns over their ability to spread the virus in the community without knowledge of themselves or their contacts. Though the upside for the State till now has been a vastly low positivity rate at 1.08 per cent (pc) of the tested samples indicating lack of community spread, it may soon change if the asymptomatic cases are not tracked down early and subjected to the preventive and therapeutic interventions.
Initially, symptomatic people with foreign travel history or with visits to high burden States and cities within the country had been confirmed with the infection and most of them were from Bhubaneswar. The asymptomatic cases came to the fore only after the Government started aggressive testing of all foreign-returned and those with travel history to COVID incidence regions of the country. Some even tested positive way after completing the 14-day period. Director of National Health Mission (NHM), Odisha Shalini Pandit said as per the tests conducted till date, the rate of positivity here is one of the lowest in the country.
“The focus has been on the vulnerable sections based on their travel history and contacts. The rate of positivity is 1.08 pc among the symptomatic and risk population and will likely go down further as the number of tests increase and include random community sampling,” she stated.
The assertion has, however, left the health experts surprised. They urged the State, which is already going slow in number of tests (around 123 per 10 lakh population), to go for aggressive testing apart from carrying out strict containment measures at places where cluster of positive cases has emerged.Pandit claimed the collection of samples for testing has been uniform in different districts of the State, including the remote areas. More than 200 samples each from Malkangiri and Kalahandi and over 300 from Balangir district have been tested so far.
According to studies, one positive case can transmit the virus to 406 persons in 30 days. Undetected asymptomatic cases can thus wreak havoc by becoming super spreaders without having any inkling about their infected status. Pandit said, “If people follow the lockdown restrictions, the spread of the infection can be restricted to only two persons. Since people in the State are adhering to the lockdown guidelines, the result is showing through the low positivity rate. Our focus is now on to identify the two people and bring the transmission rate to zero,” she added and urged people in containment zones in the State to come forward for tests. Though the number of samples being tested daily has gone up from 308 on April 12 to 803 on April 14, the State is still to utilise its full potential of over 1000 tests per day.
1197 tested, all negative
AS Odisha intensified active surveillance, 1197 samples were tested on Wednesday, the highest in a day so far, and no new cases were found. One positive case from Sundargarh has, meanwhile, recovered. Total recovered cases increased to 19 in the State.
