Nearly half of Odisha was brought under the purview of lockdown with the State government extending restrictive measures from five to 14 districts, besides prohibiting all public transport effective from Tuesday morning.
“The government further extends the lockdown to territorial jurisdiction of revenue districts of Puri, Nayagarh, Jagatsinghpur and Dhenkanal and brings entire jurisdiction of Jajpur, Bhadrak, Balasore, Sambalpur and Jharsuguda under the lockdown till March 29,” says government notification issued on Monday.
Earlier, Khordha, Cuttack, Ganjam, Kendrapara and Angul were locked down in view of COVID-19 scare.
Pandemic scare
“Although we have only two out of 85 cases tested positive for the virus, we need to enforce social distancing and isolation measures to prevent COVID-19 from becoming pandemic in our State,” said Subroto Bagchi, Chief Spokesperson on COVID-19.
As per the notification, no public transport services, including operation of taxis and auto-rickshaws, will be permitted. Even city buses will not be permitted. Now railways and bus transport are completely shut down in the entire State.
The government had already stopped all inter-State bus services.
The police booked four persons for violating lockdown norms on Monday. A day after ‘janata curfew’, hundreds of people had hit the road in different districts.
Quarantine sticker
In another significant step, the State government has decided to paste stickers on the homes where people have been placed under home quarantine.
Those who have completed quarantine period will not be covered under community monitoring of quarantined homes.
As of now 3,667 persons, who have come from abroad, have registered and opted for home quarantine. As many as 35 persons have been kept in hospital isolation.
The stickers will mention duration of home quarantine, the details of the house and family. Clear instructions should be given so that no one visits the home.
The government has instructed that local authorities should keep a vigil to ensure that there is no social boycott.
The district administration will handle the issue of essential commodities in the quarantined homes.
In view of the emergency, 7,276 temporary healthcare camps have been created. Nodal officers have also been appointed for each healthcare facility. Service providers have been identified to supply food, bedsheets and other basic services to these camps. Services have been augmented in all primary and community centres, said Mr. Bagchi.
