Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
The union health ministry has expressed concern over the sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in seven districts of the State and directed the Odisha government to initiate measures to contain the spread of the infectious disease.
“Odisha has reported 71,445 new cases in the month ending December 4 (30 days), with a contribution of 2.5% to India’s new cases from over the past month. It is important to be noted that Khordha district is reporting a high number of weekly cases with 900 new cases reported in the week ending December 3. Further, 6 out of 30 districts reported an increase in the weekly caseload in the week ending December 3, as compared to the week ending November 26”, wrote the union health secretary Rajesh Bhusan in a letter to RK Sharma, Additional Chief Secretary of the State Health and Family Welfare Department.
Dhenkanal witnessed an exponential spike in infection in a week’s period. The district logged 9 cases between November 20 and November 26 in a week’s period while it climbed to 69 cases between November 27 and December 3, which is a 666.7 percent increase in the rate of infection.
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Kandhamal clocked 250 percent (2 cases to 7 cases) hike in infection rate, Nabarangpur 150 percent (2 to 5), Keonjhar 109.1 percent (11 to 23), Angul 96 percent (10 to 39) and Bolangir 75 percent (8 to 14), respectively, the letter read.
“Further, the State exhibited a decline of 3.1% in weekly tests conducted from 4,01,164 total tests in the week ending November 26 to 3,88,788 total tests in the week ending December 3 with -36% RT PCR share,” said the Union Health Secretary while asking the State’s health authorities to adopt the ongoing strategy of Test-Tract-Treat-Vaccinate-Covid Appropriate Behaviour to bring the infection rate under control.
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