BHUBANESWAR: The Covid-19 tally in the State continues to surge with 80 new cases being reported across the State on Saturday. With 14 fresh Covid-19 positive cases reported in the last 24 hours, the tally in Jajpur district rose to 239. Of the 14 new cases, three each were reported from Korei and Rasulpur blocks and two each from Dasarathapur, Binjharpur, Bari and Dharmasala blocks. Of them, 13 are males, one is a female.
Collector Ranjan Kumar Das said all 14 persons, who tested positive on the day, are West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh returnees and were lodged in quarantine centres. Sources said a Covid-19 patient recovered on the day taking the total number of recoveries from the district to 72. As many as 10,538 migrant workers have returned to the district till date. The highest of them (2,936) are from Telengana. Meanwhile, the district administration withdrew containment zone tag from 13 areas under five blocks of the district on Friday night. An official notification in this regard was issued by the Collector on the day.
Coronavirus reaches Nabarangpur
Nabarangpur joined the coronavirus list on Saturday with a 20-year-old migrant labourer testing positive. He had returned from Andhra Pradesh in a bus to Nabarangpur along with 46 other workers on May 14. They were immediately quarantined in a TMC at Bandhakana under Chandahandi block. The district administration declared the 100 metre radius of TMC as containment zone and Bandhakana as buffer zone. The restrictions will remain till May 30. Swab samples of the other inmates of the TMC will be sent for test again.
Collector AK Mishra informed mediapersons that the administration has deputed a four-member team at Bandhakana to monitor the health condition of people in the containment zone. He appealed people not to panic. The patient has been admitted to a Covid-19 hospital in Bhubaneswar.
Health worker found +ve
Similarly in Malkangiri, five new cases were found on the day taking the district tally to eight. One among them is a community health worker from Kalimela block. The rest were lodged at the TMC at MV-72 village and Khairaput, informed Collector Manish Agarwal. While all the three from the MV-72 TMC are Tamil Nadu returnees, the lone inmate of Khairput TMC had returned from Telengana.
The Sundargarh tally of Covid-19 cases rose to 33 on Friday with five more returnees testing positive for the disease. The migrants including three women had returned from Maharastra. While two women were kept in the temporary medical centre (TMC) at Rungaon, the rest were quarantined at Ratnapur TMC under Tangarpali block. They were shifted to the Hi-Tech COVID-19 hospital at Rourkela on Friday night. Two new containment zones were notified on Saturday, taking the total number of active containment zones in Sundargarh district to five.
Chief District Medical & Public Health Officer (CDM&PHO), Dr SK Mishra said all the five were asymptomatic and the two TMCs at Bargaon and Tangapalir where they were lodged, have been declared containment zones. While the Bargaon TMC has 26 persons, 11 returnees have been lodged at the Tangarpali TMC. The second round of swab tests of the inmates would be conducted five days later. Dr Mishra said there is no apprehension of local transmission as the patients were shifted to institutional quarantine immediately after their arrival. As of now, there are 10 active cases at the Covid-19 hospital and 23 have recovered.
Sibling of minor patient infected
In Jharsuguda, two new cases were detected on Saturday. One among them is a year-old girl, sister of the minor boy of Mangal Bazaar who was found positive on Friday. The other patient is a 40-year-old man, said Collector Saroj Kumar Samal. He added that the siblings and their parents had returned from Agra and were under home quarantine. The other patient is a Maharashtra returnee who was under institutional quarantine at a TMC in Hilltop area of Brajrajnagar. The district administration has declared the hilltop area and some portion of Mangal Bazaar as containment zone.
One more in Balangir
In Balangir, a woman tested positive for Covid-19. She had returned from Telangana and was quarantined at TMC in Tikrapada gram panchayat under Saintala block. She was working at a brick kiln in Telangana and had returned on May 18. The patient has been shifted to Bhubaneswar.