COVID-19 Shutdown: All Roads Connecting Odisha’s Twin Cities To Remain Closed

Bhubaneswar: Hours after the Odisha government ordered the two-day shutdown of the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar and Bhadrak following the identification of six novel coronavirus patients, the twin city Police Commissioner Sudhanshu Sarangi on Friday afternoon announced the restrictions for the twin cities.

• The denizens are requested to stay inside their house and not use any vehicle, not even bicycle during the two-day shutdown.
• Anyone found moving outside the house will be picked up and kept in the quarantine centre for 14 days and if necessary, cases will be registered for violation of COVID-19 rules.
• Though transport vehicles will be allowed to move along the National Highway (NH), no vehicle from NH will be allowed to enter the twin cities and no vehicle in the twin cities will be allowed to ply on the NH.
• The road from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar via Barang, vehicles coming from Athagarh via Mundali, Netaji Setu and Madhusudan Setu will remain closed during the shutdown period.
• For emergency service, more ambulance vans have been deployed in the twin cities to pick up the critically ill patients from their house to the hospital.

• The denizens have been advised to use the telemedicine service by dialling 104 to seek the advice of the doctors. If the doctor feels that the patient needs urgent treatment at the hospital, he/will direct the police by dialling 100 to the police control room so that the police will make necessary arrangement to take the patient to the hospital.

• The doctors of all government and private nursing homes have been asked to provide health care service to the patients over phone. Besides, instruction has been given to these hospitals to conduct only emergency health care services in the outpatient department (OPD).

• The pass provided to doctors and para-medical staff will remain valid. But they have been asked to use it only in an emergency.
• Some specific medicine outlets specified by the Health & Family Welfare Department will remain open in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

• The vehicles of the Health & Family Welfare Department used for contact tracing of the people, who have come in contact with COVID-19 patients will be allowed to ply.
• For the television channels, a two-member team from each channel comprising a reporter and a cameraman will be allowed to report in Bhubaneswar. However, for Cuttack, one member of each channel will be allowed to report.
• For the print media, two reporters from each newspaper will be allowed to report in the twin cities.
• As most of the newspapers have their digital edition, the printing of the newspapers will remain closed for two days.
• The print media staff in charge of editorial and designing sections have been advised to make arrangements to stay in their respective offices for two days.
• In case of elderly persons and women, who cannot stay in the media office, instructions have been given to local police stations to provide them with a vehicle pass by Friday evening.
• Media houses have been asked to allow the editorial staff to work from home online.
• Pass will be provided to the staff of CESU, telecom, Public Health Engineer Department (PHED), Municipal Corporation to attend to emergency services.
• All filling stations in the twin cities will remain closed.