Bhubaneswar: Amid rising cases of Covid-19 in the state capital, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) declared 11 more residential areas as containment zones.
While six micro containment zones have come up under South-East Zone in Unit 9, Satya Nagar, Laxmi Sagar, Sriram Nagar; four areas have been demarcated as micro containment zones in Naharkanta, Maitree Vihar, and Patia under North Zone.
Moreover, the regional office of a bank has been declared micro containment zone in IRC Village, Nayapalli. With this, the total containment zones in the state capital have reached about 160.
Bhubaneswar now has the most number of containment zones in the state ever since the outbreak of Covid-19. The civic body has increased enforcement squads under its jurisdiction to check the spread of virus.
Odisha Friday recorded 10,273 new Covid-19 cases, 214 more than the previous day, with the tally rising to 11,11,879, a health department bulletin said.
The death toll mounted to 8,476 as four more persons succumbed to the disease, the highest single-day Covid-19 fatalities in more than two months, it said.
The daily test positivity rate (TPR) rose to 13.57 per cent from 12.41 per cent the previous day, the bulletin said. At least 1,065 children were among the newly-infected patients.
Khurda district, which comprises the state capital Bhubaneswar, reported one-third of the fresh infections as 3,496 people were afflicted with the disease. There were 1,049 new cases in Sundargarh, 844 in Cuttack, 529 in Sambalpur and 457 in Balasore.
Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra stressed on the need to avoid overcrowding in hospitals and urged people with minor symptoms to avail telemedicine services instead of visiting the outpatient departments in health facilities.
“Surgeries that were scheduled in advance can be done later, but emergency procedures can’t be stopped,” he told reporters.
PNN