Rising COVID Cases: Odisha Govt Makes Face Masks Mandatory In Hospitals

Bhubaneswar: In view of the rising positive cases of COVID-19 in the country and Odisha, the state government has made wearing face masks mandatory in all health facilities.

In an official order, Niranjan Mishra, director, Public Health, said it has been decided to make wearing masks mandatory by the employees in health institutions to ensure COVID appropriate behaviour.

The order is applicable to all healthcare providers during duty hours, all officials and others present in the meetings, during congregation of people particularly in close rooms and persons providing clinical/laboratory & other support services in the hospital setting.

Besides, mask is compulsory for people visiting areas having possibility of high transmission and the persons with influenza like illness.

It may be noted that active COVID caseload in Odisha breached the 3000-mark on Monday with 382 fresh infections being detected from 5,352 samples in the last 24 hours, according to data shared by the Health department.

While Odisha now has 3,032 COVID patients with 276 more having recovered from the infection, the test positivity rate (TPR) stands at 7.1%. The number of tests has also dropped below 6,000. The state had been testing 6,000-7,000 samples for last few days.

On Sunday, the daily COVID cases breached 500-mark, the highest single-day spike since mid-August last year, with a TPR of 7.5%. Five districts – Sundargarh, Cuttack, Nabarangpur, Balangir and Mayurbhanj – accounted for more than 70 per cent of the caseload.