Bhubaneswar: Panic as well as confusion continues to grip the denizens as the state government is maintaining a studied silence about the details of three Covid-19 positive cases found from Mancheswar, VSS Nagar and Suryanagar areas recently.
It’s a pity that the state government and the civic authorities are passing the ball to each other’s court regarding dissemination of the crucial information to the public, alleged some residents.
Bhubaneswar recorded three positive cases May 7, but the authorities are yet to reveal the travel history of the patients, putting the people in utter confusion and fear.
“We in our family are panicked since a case was detected from my area,” said Dipak Das, a resident of VSS Nagar. “We have our parental home in Khandagiri and we can easily relocate if the government reveals that the person tested positive was residing near us or if they decide to declare it as a containment zone. But they have been keeping us guessing which is frustrating.”
Moreover, if unofficial sources are to be believed, the 36-year-old man identified in Mancheswar was working for a Biriyani takeaway joint at Patia here and mostly delivered food parcels in Suryanagar area. This has created panic among the denizens who have started to believe rumours of a direct co-relation between the two areas of Suryanagar and Mancheswar.
“Suryanagar was one of the areas that was under containment zones and had reported the earlier cases of Covid-19. Identification of a fresh case there raises many questions. It is clear that the authorities are trying to hide their failures by not providing the details. However, if they do not inform the specifics about these cases soon, people will easily start to believe rumours that are spreading like wildfire,” said a former urban planner here.
Sources at the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that Suryanagar has about 2,125 houses and has seen over 4,000 samples tested before containment measures were removed April 22.
Furthermore, questions are being raised over online food services operating in the city who have claimed to follow all strict hygiene measures. With lockdown measures relaxed, more restaurants and hotels have started taking orders and delivering food at doorsteps in hotspots.
However, responding to the poor dissemination of the information, a senior official at the BMC said, “Since these issues are highly sensitive, we have been instructed to only provide information after approval of state government. It’s also decided that furnishing details on such matters will only be done through one platform only.”