The week that changed Odisha’s coronavirus graph

BHUBANESWAR: From the first Covid-19 positive case that Odisha reported on March 15 till the return of migrant workers started on May 3, the state had reported 162 cases in around 50 days. However, in just one week after that, it added 252 cases making up more than 60% of the total cases — mostly infected returnees from Gujarat. This drastically increased the state’s corona positive count to 414.
Until May 3, as many as 14 districts had not reported any positive case. By Monday, 21 of the 30 districts have reported positive cases, leaving only nine with no such case.
In the week gone by, the state received more than 67,000 returnees from some of the worst-affected states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra in 29 trains and around 400 buses. Among the infected, more than 200 returned from Surat alone. The overall positive cases also include 113 who returned from West Bengal or were close contacts of those who did, 41 linked to the Nizamuddin Markaz and seven foreign returnees.
In view of the mass import of positive cases, the state’s current challenge is to keep the returnees in quarantine centres so that they don’t spread the virus among the local residents.
The government authorities said the heartening fact is that most of the cases that have been reported are from quarantine centres and not from among people roaming free. “Of the last 241 cases from among the 391 (when state had reported 391 cases till 12pm on Monday), only 12 were people not in the quarantine centres. The remaining 229 were in the temporary medical centres meant for recent returnees to the state where they are kept in isolation. This means spread from them to local people is less,” government spokesperson Subroto Bagchi said. He added, “The number of infected people will increase. There is no need to panic. So far, nothing has happened that the government did not anticipate. We are well prepared.”
To ensure that isolated people don’t mix with their kin in the affected places, they are being kept 70km to 80km away from their villages. In Digapahandi block of Ganjam district where some Surat returnees had tried to violate the quarantine norms and enter their villages, the government swung into action and shifted them 75km away to Khallikote in the same district. Similarly, Surat returnees to Khallikote were relocated to Digapahandi. In Kandhamal, Kerala returnees to G Udayagiri were kept in quarantine centres in Baliguda and those returning to Baliguda have been kept in G Udayagiri.
“In some places, spouses and mothers of the returnees tended to offer them home-made food if they are staying in a quarantine centre just outside the village. To stop family members from visiting them, some people have been kept far away from their villages,” another officer said, adding that in places where the villagers and returnees are cooperating, they are being kept in their own panchayats.
Notably, the district administrations have imposed Section 144 of the CrPC outside the quarantine centres. Trying to make the stay for the returnees comfortable, they are offering them lessons on yoga and corona awareness so that they work as community health workers after the completion of isolation. The government has also been offering them 10-day work that includes cleaning and plantation for a wage of Rs 150 per day.