There is no sign of climbdown of Covid-19 cases in Odisha despite the ongoing 14-day lock down.
The state on Thursday reported the highest number of Covid-19 cases that surged past the 10,000 mark. It reported 10,521 fresh cases during the past 24 hours. Besides, the state witnessed 17 deaths and the total death toll reached 2,121. So far, the Covid-19 cases in Odisha have reached 5,00,162 and the number of active cases is 81,585.
“We are more worried as most of the cases are local contact cases. As many as 88 per cent of the total cases reported in Bhubaneswar city, are from local contacts. People need to abide by the laws,” officials said, adding that the city registered a total of 1,074 Covid cases in the last 24 hours.
So far the city has witnessed 49,330 Covid-19 cases. Among the districts, Khurda district registered the highest number of Covid cases (1,417).
The issue of non-adherence to Covid guidelines surfaced with Odisha police releasing the figure of how 1.5 lakh people were slapped with fine only in April for wearing masks and maintaining social distance.
It collected Rs 5.66 crore as fine from these willful violators. While Rs 5.24 was collected as fine from people for mask violation, the rest Rs 40,000 was collected for not adhering to social distance norms.
“This only reflects how the people are blind to the guidelines,” said a senior police official.
Director General of Police Abhya said: “It has been observed that a substantial number of people are not following Covid protocols. The number of Covid-19 cases will subside if people wear masks all times. It’s time to cooperate with the administration.”
In order to avoid congregations of people seeking permission to hold marriage and funeral functions at the police stations, the commissionerate police have asked people to seek the permission by dialling 100.
“People seeking permission to organise marriage functions and funerals can dial to 100 or whatsapp the message using 8144207100. We will send a particular format. People can fill up the format and send it back to us. We will dispatch the permission letter through whatsapp immediately. There is no need to run to the police station,” deputy commissioner of police Umashankar Das told reporters on Thursday.
In order to gear up the district machinery to fight against the Covid-19, the Odisha government on Thursday released an additional amount of Rs 7.50 crore to three districts — Puri, Sambalpur and Subarnapur.