BHUBANESWAR: Coronavirus cases continued to pile up across the State on Sunday. Four more persons including a woman tested Covid-19 positive in Sundargarh on Saturday night taking the tally to 37 in the district. All the fresh cases were reported from quarantine centres and the patients have been admitted to Hi-Tech Covid-19 hospital at Rourkela. On Friday, five migrant workers put up in quarantine centres in Bargaon and Tangarpali blocks had tested positive for coronavirus.
Administrative sources informed that the new cases included one Maharastra returnee who was in a temporary medical centre (TMC) in Bisra block. Similarly, another Surat (Gujarat) returnee at Birkera TMC of Lathikata block and two persons of the BPUT Covid Care Centre at Rourkela with travel history to Tamil Nadu tested positive. A senior health official said of the four patients, only the Surat returnee was symptomatic. He had returned in a train to Ganjam and reached Lathikata block in a four-wheeler before being shifted to the Birkera TMC. After developing symptoms, he was briefly kept at BPUT Covid Care Centre. Contact tracing of the new patients is underway.
Chief district medical and public health officer Dr SK Mishra said Bisra and Birkera TMCs were declared containment zones on Sunday. Swab test of symptomatic cases are being done on a priority basis and of 37 cases, only 12 are active while the rest have recovered. Similarly, two more positive cases, a mother-daughter duo, were detected in Kalahandi. They had returned from Kolkata on May 12 and were in paid quarantine in a hotel in Junagarh. While the woman is aged 44 years, her daughter is 19 years old. The duo has been admitted to the Covid hospital at Bandupala. With this, the district’s coronavirus cases tally reached 13.
Meanwhile, the number of migrant workers who have returned to Kalahandi from other states reached 20,000. Sources said a huge number of migrant workers of the district are on their way home and scheduled to arrive in the district soon. As many as seven fresh Covid-19 cases were detected in Ganjam, taking the tally to 348 in the district. On the day, 41 patients admitted to Sitalapali Covid hospital recovered and were discharged. On the day, Nuapada recorded its first coronavirus case after a 24-year-old man from Jholpadar village under San Maheswar panchayat in Khariar block tested positive. He had recently returned from Mumbai. Nuapada Collector Madhusmita Sahoo said the youth was staying at San Maheswar quarantine centre after his arrival in the district. He was asymptomatic.
Bargarh also joined the list of coronavirus affected districts after a 50-year-old woman from Subhash Nagar tested positive. She was in home quarantine. District Collector Jyoti Ranjan Pradhan said the woman had returned from Mumbai on May 12. She was asymptomatic, he added. Subhash Nagar has been declared a containment zone. In Balangir, seven fresh Covid-19 positive cases were detected on Sunday. With this, the total number of coronavirus cases reached 16 in the district. Of the new cases, two each are from Agalpur and Saintala blocks while Loisingha, Bangomunda and Muribahal reported one each. All the patients were lodged in quarantine centres. With two patients having recovered, Balangir now has 14 active cases.
Six more positive cases were reported in the industrial district of Angul on the day. Of the fresh cases, one is a resident of Maharashtra who was undergoing treatment at the Covid care hospital here after sustaining injuries in an accident. Sources said a bus from Mumbai met with an accident on NH-55 at Handappa recently, injuring 12 persons including the coronavirus patient. The rest five cases are from quarantine centres in Angul, Pallahara, Athmallick and Kaniha. With this, the total positive cases in the district have gone up to 24.
Malkangiri too reported two more coronavirus cases. The new patients were housed in in Kalimela and Malkangiri TMCs after returning from Chennai. Areas within 100 metre radius of both the TMCs have been declared as containment zones. With this, the number of active cases in the district reached 10.
Meanwhile, Nabarangpur district administration conducted health check-up of inmates of Bandhkana TMC under Chandahandi block from where a 20-year-old youth had tested positive on Friday. The TMC was sanitised while the village road was sealed. Besides, local villagers are being medically examined and teams comprising health staff and anganwadi workers are engaged in door-to-door survey. Nabarangpur CDMO SK Swain said the health condition of 45 migrant workers in the TMC is stable.
Stranded Chhattisgarh workers sent home
Jagatsinghpur/Balangir: As many as 258 workers from Chhattisgarh, stranded in the district due to the lockdown, were sent back to their native places on Sunday. The workers were engaged in brick kilns in several blocks of the district. They had appealed for help to return home as the kilns were closed and they were not paid any wages. Moved by their plight, Collector Sangram Mohapatra directed Labour officials to make arrangements for the workers’ return.
The workers were sent to Cuttack in five special buses from where they will be sent to Chhattisgarh in trains. Meanwhile, in Balangir, an 18-year-old woman migrant worker of Jadanga village in Boipariguda of Koraput district, died in a Shramik special train from Visakhapatnam. The victim, Radha Khorra, complained of chest pain during the train’s stoppage at Balangir railway station and died shortly after.
Access control zone tag withdrawn
Berhampur: Access control zone tag was withdrawn from Sankarpur street in the city after 150 swab samples, collected from primary contacts of a Covid-19 positive person, tested negative on Sunday. The area was declared an access control zone by Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) last week. In a notification issued on the day,
BeMC Commissioner Chakraborty Singh Rathore said regular lockdown restrictions would remain in force in the area. Meanwhile, four Shramik Special trains, one from Tamil Nadu and three from Surat, halted at Berhampur railway station for the first time after two months. Earlier, all trains carrying migrant workers used to stop at Jagannathpur railway station.