COVID-19 Burden Declining In Odisha’s Ganjam, More Areas Turning ‘Green’: Collector

Berhampur: Ganjam Collector Vijay Amruta Kulange on Friday said that the positivity rate in the district has come down to 15 per cent from 60-70 per cent.

At a press briefing here, he informed that Ganjam district had crossed the 1 lakh milestone in COVID-19 testing, which is higher than the national testing average and that of most states.

“We have been able to increase our testing by 10 times. It has helped us to identify those infected by the virus. Only 3 per cent of the 8000 samples tested positive yesterday,” he said.

The COVID-19 graph of the district shows a decline in trend and the fatality rate is also dropping, he said.

The collector informed that 84 per cent of rural Ganjam is corona-free. “We could arrest the viral load through institutional quarantine of 4 lakh migrants in over 3000 temporary medical camps. This has led to an increase in green areas in the rural Ganjam,” he said.

The green areas in urban locales have increased to 55 per cent from 49 per cent in the last five days, he added.

Kulange attributed it to intensive testing and contact tracing, proper enforcement of COVID-19 guidelines in markets and shops and proper health infrastructure in the district.

The shop keepers are following five steps to safety, including barricading, sanitizer, circle marking, no-mask-no-good and contact diary, and these have helped to contain the spread of the virus.

The collector said people are voluntarily coming forward for testing and this is a good sign.

Ganjam has a cured rate of 84 per cent with 14122 total COVID-19 cases and 11811 recoveries, he said, adding that the fatality rate is at 1 per cent with 151 deaths.

He further informed that 32 pregnant women, who tested positive for the virus, have delivered babies and they both mothers and infants are doing fine.

The collector urged the people to respect COVID warriors and directed shopkeepers to follow the five steps to safety. “Early detection will allow more time for treatment and help arrest deaths due to the virus in the district” he added.