Odisha Govt Adopts New Strategy to Intensify Fight against COVID-19

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government today adopted a new strategy to further intensify its fight against COVID-19 pandemic.

This has been announced by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik while addressing the people of the State through video conferencing on Wednesday.

As part of the new strategy, the State Government will set up ‘COVID Care Home Facility’ in every gram panchayat, the Chief Minister said.

Each COVID Care Home Facility can accommodate 10 to 20 persons, so that more than 70,000 people can stay in the Home Facilities in rural areas, the CM said.

If any person has symptoms like cold, fever and cough, he or she will be brought to the COVID Care Home Facility instead of admitting to a COVID hospital. If the report comes positive, then the person will be shifted to the COVID hospital, otherwise the person will be treated at the Home Facility, Naveen said.

Similarly, grassroots level committees will be formed in the rural and urban areas for the decentralization of COVID management. The ward level committees in rural areas will have members like peoples’ representatives, ASHA, Aganwadi, ANM and SHG members. Each committee will be sanctioned Rs 10,000 to meet the expenses.

The Sarpanches will continue to look after the TMC and COVID Care Home and get the administrative support.

In urban areas, the ward level committees will be managed by ward officers and the local people and volunteers will be members of the committees. The members will visit door to door to gather health information from the people.