Tech colleges turn into Covid hotspots

Bhubaneswar: Technical institutions in the state are turning into Covid-19 hotspots with many students testing positive in the last couple of days.
At least 49 engineering students at a private technical college in Rayagada and 13 at Fakir Mohan Medical College in Balasore tested positive on Monday. Earlier over 125 students and employees of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, tested positive.
Balasore district Covid-19 nodal officer Dr Mrutyunjay Mishra said one student of the private college tested positive on Friday. Later he was found to have the Omicron variant after genome sequencing of his Covid-19 sample at the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), Bhubaneswar. He has been admitted to the Balasore district headquarters hospital.
Later a random Covid test was conducted on the students of the institution after the detection of the Omicron case and their swab samples were sent for testing. Ten more students were found infected with the virus, he added.
All the infected students have been kept under isolation at the hostel and necessary medical assistance is being provided by the district administration.
Similarly, five students of MITS Engineering College tested positive on Friday. Following a random testing drive in the college, another 49 students tested positive taking the number of infections to 54. “The private engineering college has been declared as a micro containment zone and all the infected students have been kept in isolation in hostels,” said Saroj Kumar Mishra, Rayagada collector.