Weekend shutdown returns to 10 Odisha districts

BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Thursday announced weekend shutdown in 10 western and southern Odisha districts, which are close to Chhattisgarh, amid rising Covid infections in the state and looming danger from the neighbouring state where the active positive cases have crossed one lakh.
The government also extended night curfew to all urban areas of the state—from 10 districts implemented from April 5—and suspended inter-state bus services till further orders.
During the shutdown on Saturdays and Sunday, all non-essential activities will be prohibited in Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput and Malkangiri districts. Besides, timing of night curfew in these 10 districts was extended by four hours. Instead of 10 pm to 5 am, these will have night curfews from 6pm to 5am every day.
Cuttack and Bhubaneswar besides urban areas of 20 other districts, which had no night restrictions, will have night curfew from 9pm to 5am from Saturday.
Justifying the new curbs in a video message, chief secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said, “India has been reporting the highest number of positive cases for past some days. While number of Covid patients in all neighbouring states, especially in Chhattisgarh, are very rising fast, the positive cases in the state too is going up. Keeping these things in mind, the state government decided to take the new measures.”
The government also appointed 21 IAS officers Covid observers for various districts to help contain the virus spread.
The government moves came on a day the state added 2989 new cases, a sharp jump from Wednesday’s 2267, spread across all the 30 districts. Sundargarh reported the highest 631 infections followed by Khurda which added 438 new cases. The Khurda cases include 379 new patients from state capital Bhubaneswar.
Among others, Kalahandi (259), Cuttack (208), Sambalpur (148), Bargarh (126) and Balangir (110) reported infections in three digits.
Two more persons, a man aged 70 years in Keonjhar and a woman (60) in Kalahandi, succumbed to the infections.