For grooms in Odisha’s Rourkela, Covid-19 turns marriages costlier
As the Covid cases in Odisha crossed 9,000, several districts in the state have now imposed additional restrictions on inter-district visit in addition to weekend shutdowns as the number of local cases in the state went up quickly.
Grooms coming to the steel city of Rourkela for marriages would have to stay in quarantine for 14 days before they can marry while the Puri district administration restricted entry of outsiders to the district till July 31 amid a surge in Covid-19 cases
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has stopped entry of labourers from outside the state till July 31.
As the Covid cases in Odisha crossed 9,000, several districts in the state have now imposed additional restrictions on inter-district visit in addition to weekend shutdowns as the number of local cases in the state went up quickly. Over the last two days the number of local cases (outside quarantine centres) have been around 30 per cent of the total reported cases.
With 66 new Covid-19 cases reported from Sundergarh district in the last 24 hours, Rourkela city in the district decided to introduce stricter quarantine norms for returnees and travellers coming to the city, said additional district magistrate Aboli Sunil Naravane. “Every person coming to Rourkela will have to spend 14-days in home or institutional quarantine,” she said.
“As there has been a rise in Covid-19 in several districts, people coming from 14 Covid hotspot areas of the state will have to remain in 14-day quarantine (home, institutional or paid) as per advice of doctors. After their arrival in Rourkela, people will have to register themselves at the registration counter at BPUT(Biju Patnaik University of Technology),” said Naravane.
Similarly, the administration has stopped entry of people into Puri district. Puri district collector Balwant Singh said visitors without valid permission will not be allowed to enter the district. In case of any emergency only those with valid permission will be allowed to enter the district.
Officials said the additional measures were necessary to keep the spectre of community transmission at bay. Of the 469 cases reported in the state on Sunday, more than 32 per cent cases were local contacts. Even the positivity rate(positive cases to total samples tested) has gone up to 9 per cent in the last three days from 5-6 per cent over last month. At least 19 of the 30 districts in the state have resorted to weekend shutdown to check community transmission.
But despite the restrictions, officials said more and more people are violating Covid guidelines of maintaining social distancing norms and wearing masks. On Saturday, five persons including a groom and his hotelier father in Ganjam district were arrested for a marriage procession involving over 150 people while BJP MP from Bhubaneswar Aparajita Sarangi was booked for violating social distancing norms while distributing leaflets about her achievement report on completion of first year as MP.
In the southern Odisha district of Rayagada, a migrant family of three that returned from Andhra Pradesh last month ended up infecting 87 others as they did not adhere to the social distancing norms. The family -- a man, his wife and their daughter - had returned to their village Bijaypur. During their home quarantine, the family members allegedly did not adhere to prescribed norms and came in contact with several people in the village.
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