Cuttack faces testing time with tests dropping and missing tracing

CUTTACK: Concerned over the dangerous surge of Covid-19 in the Twin City of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has been repeatedly directing the respective administrations to intensify efforts to contain the spread through aggressive testing and proactive tracing, isolation and treatment. But, is the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) paying heed?

The ground situation in Cuttack city, now the third most affected in the State and poised to leap to second after Bhubaneswar in the next few days, presents a grim picture. The lackadaisical approach  of the civic body towards the key aspects of testing, tracing, isolation and treatment is pushing the city into dire straits.

Consider this: While the need for increased testing has become paramount for getting a grip over the disease spread in the community, in Cuttack, the number of tests are falling by the day. From around 2,500 to 3,000 tests a day, the number has come down to less than 2,000.

To compound matters, the testing centres are running out of kits, leaving people who are going to them to get themselves tested high and dry. The situation can be well perceived from the urban primary health centre (UPHC) at Odia Bazar where the rapid antigen test has been stopped due to shortage of kits for the last four days.

People belonging to six wards are assigned to the Odia Bazar UPHC. They have been asked to visit any of the two urban community health centres (UCHCs) located at Chauliaganj and CDA. ADPHO Nilakhi Sarkar said steps are being taken to solve the problem as soon as possible.

CMC Commissioner Ananya Das on the other hand claimed that the city witnessed a surge in positive cases following an increase in testing. Around 2,500 to 3,000 samples are being tested daily out of which 60 pc are RT-PCR. Till July 15, around 1000 tests were conducted daily. Ruling out the shortage of kits, Das said the Covid testing was hampered slightly in the last few days due to adverse situation arising out of heavy rain and flood. “We could only test around 1,900 daily in those few days,” she added.

Testing notwithstanding, contact tracing, which is a key aspect of pandemic control, has also fallen apart. Poor contact tracing of Covid patients is the main reason behind spurt in cases, experts warned.
A 32-year-old man of Jobra Rehman Square locality had tested positive on August 16 following which, the CMC health officials advised him to undergo home quarantine. “Though I have been requesting the officials of CMC control room and local ward officer for testing of my wife and family members, nobody has yet turned up,” he said.With God’s grace, no family member showed any symptom but no one even bothered to check, if they as close contacts are also maintaining quarantine as per rules, he added.

Even the health officials are yet to come forward to test him again to enable him in availing a Covid negative certificate to resume his duty. Like him many others have a tale of woes to tell about their sufferings and the callousness with which the Covid situation is being handled in the city. Collector Bhabani Sankar Chayani, however, said a total of 89,296 samples, including 47,387 RT-PCR and 41,909 antigen, have been tested so far. As many as 8,994 positive cases including 3,489 from rural areas and 5,505 cases from CMC jurisdiction have been detected. The percentage of positive cases is 38.79 in rural areas and 60.98 in urban area, he added.

370 fresh cases 
Cuttack: The district on Thursday registered 370 fresh cases taking the tally to 9,350. The new cases included highest 237 from Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) area and 133 from rural parts of the district. Of the 237 cases detected in CMC area, 54 have been reported from institutional quarantine and 81 from home quarantine while the rest 102 were local cases. As on Thursday, the total number of positive cases in CMC area stands at 5,569 with 1,830 active cases. As many as 3,710 patients have recovered while the virus has claimed 29 lives so far in CMC area.