Odisha Chief Secy Reviews COVID-19 Preparedness In Districts

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra on Thursday informed about the fresh COVID containment guidelines to Collectors, SPs, Superintendents of Medical Colleges, CDMOs and district officers over video conferencing from Lok Seva Bhavan here.

The issues regarding functionalisation of COVID Care Centers, enforcement of COVID appropriate behaviour, dispersing of markets places,  imposition of night shutdown in urban areas, weekend shutdown in urban areas of bordering districts and other matters were discussed.

The Chief Secretary directed the Collectors to increase the number of rapid response teams for monitoring home isolation cases and, allot a small area to each team for intensive monitoring. The teams should also work for testing, contact tracing.

The district administration should singularly focus on containment of the spread of the infection, said the Chief Secretary and asked the collectors to engage any employee from any department in COVID duty as per the Disaster Management Act.

All Government employees will be under the complete control of the Collectors of the respective districts. The CDMOs and medical officers were asked to follow the SOPs judiciously for admission into and discharge from Covid hospitals.

Additional Chief Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, PK Mohapatra also directed to follow the SOPs strictly regarding referral of COVID patients. Collectors were also asked to make oxygen arrangements in CCCs and treat the noncritical patients there.

Involvement of PRI institutions and village communities in containment of the virus in their respective areas was also stressed.

Director General of Police Abhay, Additional Chief Secretary and SRC Pradeep Kumar Jena, ACS Health and Family Welfare PK Mohapatra, Additional Chief Secretary Home Sanjeev Chopra, Additional Chief Secretary Raj Kumar Sharma, Principal Secretary Finance Ashok Kumar Meena, Director National Health Mission Shalini Pandit along with senior officers joined the meeting.