Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday said with the opening up of flights and railways, the coming 15 days to a month will be more challenging for the state.
The number of Covid-19 positive cases in the state crossed the 1,500 with report of another 79 new cases on Tuesday. The total tally has reached 1,517.
“We have to restrategise our response based on these learnings so that we are ahead of the pandemic and at the same time bring normalcy in economic and livelihood activities,” Naveen said, adding how during the two months of lockdown, there are many learning experience both scientific, social and administrative.
The chief minister on Tuesday directed officials to launch a fortnight long serious awareness creation on social distancing, wearing masks and repeated hand washing. “Social distancing is not social boycotting. A combination of awareness creation coupled with strict action is required. This would also be a target for this week,” he said.
Naveen also reminded all that the 95 per cent of positive cases are from quarantine centres where the returnees from different parts of the country are staying.
“Temporary medical camps at gram panchayat level are doing a great job in containing the spread. Ninety-five per cent of our positive cases are from quarantine centres. This shows the robustness of our system and the efforts put by sarpanches, people’s representatives and the entire government machinery from top to bottom cutting across departments,” he said.
Stating that Odisha is one of the leading states in testing in the country, Naveen said: “Testing has to be smart to take care of our frontline workers and vulnerable population.”
Officials said so far the 1,31,595 testing has already been done. While 733 have recovered, seven people died.
Naveen said: “Its a long drawn fight and so far we have handled it well and we are restrategising our approach based on new learnings. The efforts to do small certification courses for persons in quarantine will help us handle the situation even more efficiently in future. “