Bhubaneswar: With the state capital and Cuttack seeing a steep hike in Covid-19 cases, director of the state Health department Bijay Panigrahi said Wednesday that the twin cities may be hit hard by community transmission. The state capital reported 1,044 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, while the figure for Cuttack stands at 496.
Panigrahi said the number of cases in the twin cities is increasing as many people are visiting the two places from different districts. One positive person is infecting multiple people. Hence community transmission-like is prevailing.
However, Panigrahi said, there is no shortage of beds at the hospitals. While the occupancy of ICU beds is around 53 per cent, for ventilators and general beds it is approximately 33 per cent and 36 per cent respectively. “We are monitoring the situation daily and accordingly increasing the number of beds when and wherever it is required,” he informed.
With Odisha registering a huge spike of more than 8,000 new Covid-19 cases Wednesday, the highest this year, health experts said more restrictions need to be put in place to contain the virus.
“The present situation will continue, the number of daily cases is likely to go up to 30,000 per day by mid-May. Therefore, lockdown like steps should be enforced,” said senior doctor and health expert Niroj Mishra.
Former director of AIIMS, Ashok Mohapatra too had a similar opinion to offer. “In Chhattisgarh, the entire population is less than that of Odisha. It has reported 12,000 to 15,000 new cases for the last few days. So it will be wrong to say that Odisha will only report 6,000 cases during peak,” Mohapatra said.
Factors like population density and public movement are responsible for the rise in cases in some pockets of Odisha, he pointed out.