BHUBANESWAR: With Odisha seeing an uptick in new coronavirus cases, the State government on Friday appealed to people with COVID symptoms to get themselves tested and isolated to prevent further spread of the infection.
Director of Public Health Dr Niranjan Mishra said people suffering from cold, cough and fever must come forward for Covid tests and isolate themselves instead of hiding the symptoms and visiting crowded places.
"Cases are rising in several states and we cannot ignore the surge. Generally, the number of infections rise in the State nearly a fortnight or month after the metros report a spike. Though the situation in Odisha is not alarming now, people need to behave responsibly," he said.
Dr Mishra urged people to cooperate with the health team visiting their houses for surveillance on symptomatic coronavirus cases and inform them if anyone in their families is suffering from symptoms. A three-month integrated survey is being carried out in the State which will also help identify suspected TB and leprosy cases besides intensifying the prevention and control of malaria, dengue and diarrhoea.
On the day, the State recorded 25 new infections from six districts taking the active cases to 164. Even as the daily case count dropped by around 40 per cent as compared to the previous day's tally of 41 cases, Khurda continued to top the list of districts. The maximum 15 cases, including 10 from Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) area, were from Khurda.
"There is no reason to panic as out of 10,000 tests, only 25 are testing positive for COVID-19 in Odisha with a test positivity rate of 0.25 per cent. But we should not be complacent. Collectors have been directed to accelerate testing and focus on isolating persons after necessary contact tracing," Dr Mishra added.
However, no new variant or sub-variant of SARS-CoV2 has emerged from the State. The samples sequenced recently were detected with the BA.2 variant known as Omicron. The Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), a lab of Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), is falling short of samples for sequencing as the RT-PCR positive cases with required CT value are negligible.
The authorities of ILS have urged the Health and Family Welfare department to send all RT-PCR positive samples from clusters if there is any outbreak. However, the samples collected from a recent cluster in a hostel in Cuttack district are yet to be sequenced.
Bhubaneswar's new COVID cases rise
BHUBANESWAR: Amid fear of another COVID-19 outbreak, the State Capital has started witnessing new infections in double digit pushing the active case tally towards 200-mark. Ten COVID cases were reported in the city in the last 24 hours. The new cases have pushed the active case tally of the city to 165 from around 142 three days back.
In fact, the city had less than 90 active cases till May end. BMC officials said the load on hospitals has been extremely low and barring a few, patients in most of the cases are undergoing treatment in home isolation.