Will Lockdown Be Extended In Bhubaneswar, Cuttack And Ganjam?

Bhubaneswar: Topping the State’s COVID-19 tally among districts, with 9,501 positive cases and more than 3,100 active coronavirus patients, Ganjam continues to be the major hotbed in Odisha.

The district has averaged around 500 cases everyday over the last seven days. The day-wise COVID-19 positive figures of Ganjam between July 22 and 28 is: 332, 491, 484, 560, 732, 540 and 371.

The situation of Bhubaneswar or Khurda district is equally alarming. The district has so far reported 3,572 positive cases of coronavirus out of which 1,997 are active ones.

A majority of cases in Khurda are from Capital City Bhubaneswar. Till 9 am on Monday (July 28), Bhubaneswar reported 2,365 cases of COVID-19, while the active case tally of the Capital City clocked 1,209.

Ganjam district has reported 85 COVID-19 deaths so far while 19 persons have died in Khurda. In Bhubaneswar alone 13 coronavirus casualties have been reported.

Now the question here is, whether the State Government will lift or extend Lockdown in Ganjam, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack further beyond July 31.

On July 17, the Odisha Government had imposed lockdown in Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttack, Jajpur and Rourkela Municipal Corporation (area) for a period of 14-days. While the testing activities were intensified during this lockdown period, COVID cases continued to rise in Ganjam, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

Cuttack has shown a similar trend during the last two weeks of lockdown. Cuttack district has reported 1,885 positive cases of COVID-19 so far out of which 777 are from Cuttack City.

The number of active cases in Cuttack Municipal Corporation area is 453 while the total active cases in Cuttack district is 666. This means, the CMC area constitutes around 68 percent of the active cases in the entire district.

Besides, Cuttack district has reported 11 COVID deaths so far, out of which 10 are in CMC area alone, which is alarming.

With 28,107 cases, Odisha is currently ranking 15 in the list of States in terms of total COVID-19 positives detected so far. The number of of active cases in the State is 9,857. The total number of deaths recorded in Odisha till Monday stood at 154.

Now let us take a look at the collective figures of Ganjam, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

Number of COVID cases detected – 12,643 (45% of total in Odisha)
Number of Active cases – 4,769 (48% of total in Odisha)
Number of Deaths – 108 (70% of total in Odisha)

“An extended period of lockdown would place the Government agencies in a better position to pursue the three Ts – Track, Test and Treat, and contain the spread of the disease. The lockdown is also an effective weapon to check community transmission,” a senior doctor at a Government hospital here said.

The Government is keeping close watch on the surging coronavirus related cases in Ganjam district and the Twin City of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Highly placed sources said, it is very likely that the lockdown may be extended in Ganjam, BMC and CMC area beyond July 31. The lockdown might also be extended/imposed on Khurda and Cuttack districts to reduce the virus’ transmission.