426 New COVID-19 Cases In 72 Hours, Next Three Weeks Critical For Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Odisha reported over 2,000 corona positive cases in last one month and 426 among them in the last three days, taking the affected tally to 2245.

According to Health Department sources, 119 of 129 cases on May 31 were detected in quarantine centres while the rest were local contacts. Odisha witnessed the highest single-day spike of 156 fresh cases on June 1. Among these, 153 were detected in quarantine centres while three were local contacts.

On June 2 (Tuesday), corona positive tally touched 2245 with 141 new cases being reported in which 110 were detected in quarantine centres. The remaining 31 were local contacts. With seven deaths and 1325 recoveries, the number of active cases in the state stands at 911.

The cases have surged after return of the migrants. So far, 4.26 lakh migrant workers have returned to the state.

On Monday, the Odisha government decided to impose weekend shutdown in heavy-case-load 11 districts as its expected the next three weeks to be critical in these districts, which accounted for 90 per cent of the total cases, as severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) as well as influenza like illness (ILI) would spike with the onset of monsoon.

“The strategy behind weekend lockdowns and longer night curfew is to cut infection peak during this 21-day phase,” Secretary 5T V Karthikeyan Pandian explained during an interaction with Editors of mediahouses here.

The night curfew is in force from 7 pm to 5 am.

He further said that Odisha was ahead of other states in terms of slowing down the infection rate as it took 37 days to reach the 2000th case from 100 mark. It is only behind Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh in number of tests (1,55,690) for first 2000 positive cases in the country, he added.