COVID Cases Rising In Odisha: Situation Not Alarming, Says Top Health Official

Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s Health Director Bijay Mohapatra on Monday said that although COVID-19 cases were rising in the state, the situation was not alarming.

“We have adopted the earlier strategy of stepping up vaccination and surveillance. Door-to-door testing will begin tomorrow. Those testing positive will be kept in isolation,” he told mediapersons.

As far as vaccination is concerned, Family Welfare Director Bijay Panigrahi said that about 29 lakh people in the state have not been vaccinated for the second dose till yet. Besides, about 40% health workers and 10% frontline warriors have not taken the booster dose yet.

“Around 96% of those aged above 18 years, 91% children in 12-14 years age group and 80% kids aged between 15 and 17 years have received the first dose. Under the door-to-door inoculation programme ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ Abhiyan’, launched on June 1, over 1.46 lakh people have been inoculated so far,” he informed.

Odisha reported 46 COVID cases on Monday. The state reported 51 cases on Sunday, 38 cases on Saturday, 25 cases on Friday and 41 cases on Thursday.

Though the state is yet to see a concerning spike, the daily numbers are slowly rising with cases being reported in two digits for the last 11 days. 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.