Bhadrak: The district administration sealed all the entry points to five panchayats of Tihidi and Dhamnagar blocks Saturday. The move came after four persons from these two blocks tested positive for coronavirus Friday.
Friday alone, reports of five patients came out as positive in Bhadrak district, taking the district tally to 16. Of the five, two each from Tihidi and Dhamnagar blocks and one from Basudevpur block tested positive.
The administration announced five panchayats of Tihidi and Dhamnagar blocks as containment zones. Due to incessant rain, the entry points to these panchayats could not be sealed Friday. The district and police administration barricaded these entry points Saturday morning.
Kanpur, Sandakpur and Bamanabindha villages of Bamanabindha panchayat and Kamp, Kampadabindha and Talakampada villages of Kampada panchayat under Tihidi block are within the containment zone. Similarly, two villages of Kalyani panchayat, six villages of Khadapada panchayat, Uteipur village of Anandapur panchayat under Dhamnagar block have been sealed.
While four nodal officers have been given charges of these containment zones of two blocks, block development officers (BDOs) of these two blocks have been entrusted with the job of supervising all the procedures like contact tracing, sanitisation etc.
The villagers of these areas have been asked not to come out of their houses. Similarly, government and private educational institutions have been directed to close their centres.
Even though a 60-hour shut down is in force in the district, the villagers were in a state of panic after their villages were declared as containment zones.
The district administration sources said that aggressive contact tracing, sample testing and isolation have already started.
PNN