JAJPUR: In what has emerged as a major worry for Jajpur administration, the district witnessed the highest single-day spike in the number of Covid-19 positive cases with 17 persons testing positive for the disease on Thursday.

With this, the total number of positive cases in the district rose to 36 from 19 within 24 hours.  All the new cases are from the Katikata containment zone and had come in contact with the six coronavirus patients who were found positive last week. While the youngest among them are two children aged three, the oldest is an 85-year-old woman.

All of them were asymptomatic and under quarantine. The administration has extended the containment zone to three villages under Dahanihata panchayat, close to the Katikata border.

The villagers are Dipura, Kuana and Dahanihata. Of the 17 cases, one belongs to Dipura village. Collector Ranjan Kumar Das urged people not to panic as all the positive cases have been reported from the containment zone.

“After the six positive cases were reported last week, we had collected 200 swab samples from 269 families in the Katikata containment zone and 17 were found positive today”, he said, adding that had the village not been contained, the situation would have been worse for people in Jajpur district and beyond.

The Collector admitted to 700 West Bengal returnees in the district violating the mandatory quarantine guidelines which led to spread of the infection.

“All the returnees have now been put into institutional quarantine”, he informed. Sarpanch of Katikata Sanjuktarani Parida added that although she had appealed to the returnees to remain in home quarantine, a majority did not follow the advice. State’s patient no. 96, a resident of Katikata, had returned from Kolkata with six others on March 29.

Although he stayed in quarantine for 14 days, the 57-year-old man tested positive on April 25. He was kept in a quarantine centre till April 12. Following this, the administration had declared the panchayat as containment zone. 

Coronavirus spread

• All the new cases had come in contact with the six coronavirus patients who were found positive last week

• Admin has extended the containment zone to Dipura, Kuana and Dahanihata villages under Dahanihata panchayat