Bhubaneswar: Sharing vital data on status of COVID-19 in Odisha, National Health Mission (NHM) Director Shalini Pandit said that the COVID-19 positive cases in Odisha are very low compared to other states in the country.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, the NHM Director said that as compared to other States, Odisha ranks fourth from the bottom in number of positive cases notified with 60 positive cases.
Odisha ranks much below in the number of positive cases as compared with states such as Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamilnadu and Rajasthan, she said.
Odisha, which has a population of 4.5 crore, has so far reported just 60 positive cases. It is mainly due to the peoples’ adherence to the guidelines of the lockdown imposed to fight coronavirus, Pandit added.
She also thanked the people for sincerely following the lockdown rules for the last 25 days in a disciplined manner helping the State to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
She further said that of the total 5,537 samples tested so far, the state reported only 60 positive cases keeping the rate at 1.08 per cent.
Though some other states have less positive cases than Odisha, the rate of positivity to COVID-19 in the state is one of the lowest rates of the positive case as Odisha’s rate is 1.08 while it is 1 per cent in Jharkhand, she said.
The recovery rate in Odisha remains at 30 per cent while the death rate is two per cent, she said.
On the present corona status of the state, Pandit said of the 60 positive cases detected so far, 18 people have already been cured and discharged from hospitals.
Similarly, of the 41 active cases, only two patients require hospital care even as the state has so far arranged 3,620 beds in the dedicated COVID Hospitals.
As many as 113 persons are under hospital isolation at present, she said.
Referring an ICMR survey, Pandit said that a COVID-19 infected person can easily transmit the highly infectious virus to 406 people in 30 days without lockdown. However, if an infected person remains in lockdown and obeys all norms, he/she will transmit the virus to only 2 persons.”
Since there is a lockdown, we have to identify these 2 persons who have been infected from a COVID-19 patient and make the rate of transmission zero,” Pandit said.
She also urged the people to obey the lockdown norms in letter and spirit and help the state to achieve “zero transmission”.