E-Paper
For second time Odisha records 18 Covid-19 cases in a day, 10 have a Bengal link
A large number of people have been entering Odisha form Bengal through smaller roads connecting the two states.
The Odisha government on Tuesday rushed rapid response teams to Bhadrak and Jajpur districts after the state recorded the highest single day spike in coronavirus cases for the second time in a fortnight on Monday with 18 people including 10 from these two districts with travel history to Kolkata testing positive.
The government also asked people with travel history to West Bengal during the last 28 days, to quarantine themselves at home.
The total number of Covid-19 infections in Odisha has now risen to 79. Previously, 15 cases were detected on April 3 and 18 on April 5, most of them from Bhubaneswar.
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On Monday night, five more people including a 12-year-old boy were tested positive in Balasore town which is now emerging as a Covid-19 hotspot. All five are family members of a 58-year-old man who had tested positive on April 18.
Odisha health and family welfare department officials said the 10 workers of Jajpur and Bhadrak districts who had tested positive were working in West Bengal and had returned to Odisha in the last 28 days evading the lockdown by travelling in small vehicles or goods trains and other means.
Chief spokesperson of state government on Covid-19, Subroto Bagchi, said 24 of the 79 cases in Odisha had travel history to West Bengal where the number of Covid-19 cases is rising sharply. In Kolkata, 54 new cases were reported on Monday.
Five people from Bhadrak, aged between 48 years and 66 years, had slipped through the Odisha-Bengal border between March 28 and April 9. Quarantined in their homes, they were all asymptomatic till they tested positive on Monday. Another five people of Jajpur district, aged between 28 years and 64 years, working as labourers in Howrah and Burrabazar area, too had returned from Kolkata in the last 28 days.
Jajpur district collector Ranjan Das said one of the five Covid-19 patients detected in Bhadrak had travelled with five people from Jajpur in a van while they were returning from Kolkata on March 29. As the five got down at Sathipur on March 30 morning, the district collector appealed to residents of villages situated adjacent to Sathipur to inform the officials if anyone with travel history to Kolkata had reached the villages after March 30.
“Most people from West Bengal are clandestinely trying to sneak into the villages. It’s not possible for the state administration and police to keep watch on every village. So the grampanchayats are extremely important in detection of potential Covid cases,” a health department press release said.
A senior police official said though every effort is being made to seal the Odisha-Bengal border, many people were crossing over into the state in ambulances. Though all modes of passenger transport services have been suspended for over a week, a large number of people have been entering Odisha by smaller roads connecting the two states through private vehicles like cars, auto-rickshaw, mini-buses and trucks.
“We have little way of knowing how many of them are genuine. Instead of going to hospitals in Kolkata, many of the patients from Bengal’s Midnapore district are flooding AIIMS Bhubaneswar and SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. They may prove to be the greatest source of infection,” said the official.
An AIIMS official said in the last one week, the number of patients from Bengal has gone up.
With more and more people from Bengal entering Odisha through numerous roads, Odisha’s Director General of Police Abhay visited the state’s border with Bengal in Balasore and Mayurbhanj districts on Tuesday to oversee its sealing. Odisha has 38 villages that share the border with Bengal. Of the 38 villages, 35 are in Balasore and rest are in Mayurbhanj district.
A two-year-old tribal girl in Balasore district was among the 18 who tested positive on Monday, making her the youngest Covid-19 patient in the state. The girl in Nilagiri block was running fever and had a cold following which she was taken to the district headquarters hospital in Balasore where her swab sample was taken. Officials said they were intrigued by the girl’s case as she did not have any travel history.
