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Odisha posts highest single-day surge in Covid-19 positive cases
All 21 new Covid-19 positive cases were migrant labourers, including 17 and four from Ganjam and Mayurbhanj districts, respectively, who had recently returned home from the industrial town of Surat in Gujarat, the state health and family welfare department said in a tweet.
Odisha posted its highest single-day surge in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) positive cases, as 21 people were found to be infected by SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease, and the overall tally in the state rose to 206 on Thursday.
All 21 new Covid-19 positive cases were migrant labourers, including 17 and four from Ganjam and Mayurbhanj districts, respectively, who had recently returned home from the industrial town of Surat in Gujarat, the state health and family welfare department said in a tweet.
A 20-year-old girl is among the 17 new Covid-19 positive cases reported from the coastal Ganjam district. While Mayurbhanj district’s green zone tag was wiped out when four migrant labourers tested Covid-19 positive. All the new Covid-19 positive cases are asymptomatic and have been kept at quarantine centres on their return to Odisha, the health department officials said.
On Wednesday, another nine migrant workers, who recently returned from Surat, tested Covid-19 positive in Jagatsinghpur, Ganjam and Kendrapara districts.
Of the 206 Covid-19 positive cases in the state, around half have either returned from Surat or Kolkata.
Till Wednesday, 35,540 migrant workers had returned to Odisha. Another five lakh is expected to arrive over the next few weeks, and the state government has arranged an equal number of quarantine beds in around 12,000 makeshift medical camps.
State health department officials said that the curve is unlikely to be flattened in the coming days, as Odisha is expecting an influx of stranded migrant labourers.
Odisha reported its first Covid-19 positive cases in 37 days, and the figure doubled in only 11 days, raising concerns for the state government.
On March 15, only one district Khurda, had reported a Covid-19 positive case, but it has since spread to 16 of the 30 districts in the state.
Special Relief Commissioner Pradeep Kumar Jena has asked all district collectors and municipal commissioners to ensure spot registration of non-enrolled migrant returnees in temporary medical camps immediately after their arrival from other states.
To make matters worse, hundreds of migrants, who returned from Surat, flouted state government’s guidelines and did not register their vehicles on the Covid-19 portal giving the journey details.
The government is worried about the rampant violation of norms that are putting paid to its containment plans.
For instance, in some quarantine centres in Ganjam district, over 100 migrant returnees fled as a mark of protest against lack of food and water and in another case they threw away ‘unpalatable’ food.
The authorities have booked seven people at a quarantine centre in coastal Bhadrak district for filming a video in violation of social distancing norms.
Allegations are also doing the rounds about some migrant returnees, who are quietly slinking away at the dead of night from the quarantine centres to spend time with their families.
Though the state government has issued stern warnings against such indiscretions, officials said they did not want to be seen heavy-handed in their approach while dealing with the migrants.
“Don’t look down at the migrant returnees, as they’ve returned from the states that have emerged as Covid-19 hotspots. Though some of them have tested Covid-19 positive, we need to treat them properly,” said Subroto Bagchi, state government’s spokesperson on Covid-19.
“The returnees have the same rights as anybody else living in Odisha. In fact, they’ve more rights on the state’s resources, as they are in distress due to the loss of their livelihoods because of lockdown restrictions,” he added.
