Unlocking Odisha: These Four Factors To Determine Norms Relaxation

Bhubaneswar: With the ongoing lockdown ending in the next 24 hours, Odisha is expecting an official announcement on the possible unlocking process on Wednesday. 

Speculation is rife that the unlocking process will begin in a phase-wise manner, starting with districts that have a test positivity rate (TPR) below 5 per cent. The government is likely to allow some relaxations at these places while continuing with the night curfew and weekend shutdown.

Besides TRP, active caseload, bed occupancy and extent of vaccination will also determine the relaxation in the lockdown restrictions, official sources said.

TPR 

Seven western Odisha districts – Kalahandi, Bargarh, Sonepur, Nuapada, Sambalpur, Balangir, Jharsuguda – and two in south – Ganjam and Gajapati – have been reporting TPR below 5 per cent for the past one week.

A total of 14 districts – Kalahandi, Bargarh, Sonepur, Nuapada, Sambalpur, Balangir, Jharsuguda, Ganjam, Sundargarh, Rayagada, Koraput, Dhenkanal, Kandhamal and Kendrapada are in Green Zone in TPR.

Notably, the business hours for essential items in Nuapada and Gajapati, besides Sundargarh, were extended by two hours on May 28 following a decline in new cases.

Khurda, Jajpur, Cuttack and Balasore, however, are in Red Zone in both active cases and positivity rate. While Jajpur has a TPR of 22.3 per cent, it is 11 per cent in Khurda.

The other districts with high TPR include Bhadrak (9.6 per cent), Puri and Balasore at 8.9 per cent, Cuttack (8.4), Jagatsinghpur (8.3), Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar at 7.9 per cent and Nayagarh (7.8).

ACTIVE CASES

While Khurda (7091), Cuttack (4232), Jajpur (3909) and Balasore (3467) are in Red Zone, 14 districts have been tagged as Green with less than 1000 active cases, according to the state dashboard.

BED OCCUPANCY

Odisha now has 9,000 patients undergoing treatment for COVID in different hospitals. Among them, around 2500 are in ICU and 739 on ventilator support.

VACCINATION

Khurda has seen the highest number of vaccinated persons at 8.35 lakh, followed by Ganjam (7.36 lakh0, Cuttack (5.90 lakh), Sundargarh (4.40 lakh), Puri (3.5 lakh).

Apart from these factors, the government has been stressing COVID appropriate behaviour among people to avoid a disaster following relaxation in norms.