Gajapati: With 89 new COVID-19 cases reported in Gajapati district Tuesday, the district administration has imposed a lockdown which will be followed by a shutdown here.
According to Gajapati district collector Anupam Saha, the lockdown will be for three days (Monday to Wednesday) and shutdown will be for four days (Thursday to Sunday).
The areas where both shutdown and lockdown will be imposed are Kerandi panchayat, Katalakaitha panchayat under Gosani block, Ranipentha panchayat under Kashinagar block, Jhammi panchayat under Gumma block, all block headquarters, municipal jurisdiction of Paralakhemundi and Kashinagar NAC.
The entry and exit points of block headquarters, Paralakhemundi municipality and Kashinagar NAC have been sealed.
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During the period, no person shall be allowed to commute to block headquarters and ULBs by any means and no government official shall be allowed to commute to Gajapati district from adjoining districts including Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh for duty.
The district administration has assured that during the shutdown, emergency services will remain open including milk and medicine shops. All other shops, private and government offices will remain closed. However, fire station, electricity office and emergency section at collector’s office will remain open.
During the lockdown, all grocery shops, meat and fish shops will remain open from 6am to 1pm.
During the shutdown period, the district administration will undertake containment measures such as contact tracing, symptom checking, door-to-door health screening of people by the Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) using infrared thermometer, pulse oximeter and antigen kits and ensuring isolation of suspected cases.
The RRTs will cover every family members to identify symptomatic cases of COVID-19 and their shifting to COVID care homes for isolation and testing.
It may be mentioned here that with 89 new positive cases reported Tuesday, the total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the district has increased to 1,145. On the other hand, 466 patients are undergoing treatment in the COVID-19 hospitals while 670 patients have recovered from the disease. Nine patients in the district succumbed to COVID-19.
PNN