Deogarh: As many as nine more students of a residential school in Deogarh district tested positive for Covid-19 Wednesday afternoon and all of them are asymptomatic, authorities informed.
“Students who tested positive for the virus have been kept in isolation in a separate room. A total of 221 swab samples of students including staff of the school were earlier sent for rapid antigen testing, of which nine samples tested positive,” headmaster of the school said.
Tests were conducted after ten persons including six students and four staff of the school tested positive for Covid-19 Tuesday.
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“Infected students and staff have been kept in isolation and may be shifted to a local government-run health facility for further treatment, only if need arises. The Covid-19 safety protocols are being strictly followed in the school,” a district administrative official stated.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urged the people of Odisha Wednesday to remain cautious and not to step out of their homes to curb probable spread of new Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Patnaik’s message came close on the heels of two cases of Omicron being detected in the state after conducting genome sequencing of earlier collected samples of foreign returnees, which was confirmed Tuesday by the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) in Bhubaneswar.
Notably, Director of state Public Health department Niranjan Mishra informed Tuesday that a total 8,880 people have returned to the state since November this year. Around 1,600 of them were from the ‘at-risk’ countries and all the foreign returnees, including even those from ‘non at-risk’ countries have been kept under strict surveillance.
PNN