OdishaPlus Bureau
Nearly a month has passed since the people of the State went under lockdown a new concept for them as part of Union Government’s efforts to break the chain of coronavirus in the country by asking people to remain indoors and observing social distancing to supplement State Government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 virus and save lives.
The measure has impacted the lives of almost every Indian and the difficulties of people, mostly the working class has been huge.
However, the Union and State Governments have attempted to mitigate the miseries of the daily wage earners and destitute providing them ration for three months in advance and Rs 1000 in cash to manage life during the lockdown.
But what has bothered the people most that they do not know what is in store for them next and whether life will be the same as it used to be before March 2020.
A poor and backward state Odisha has, however, emerged as a leader so far the COVID-19 management is concerned and the State Government, ably led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, is credited with an early response to the pandemic.
The Union Government clamped the first phase lockdown on March 24 for 21 days till April 14. The second phase of 19 days will continue until May 3, 2020.
Though World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a global pandemic on January 30, the first case was detected in Odisha on March 16 and the second only three days later on March 19, 2020.
Both the COVID patients in State were students studying abroad in Italy and the UK.
But the State Government declared it as a State Disaster on March 13 much before the Union Government made any announcement in this regard.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ordered lockdown in nine districts, including the State capital once the cases were confirmed.
As a precautionary measure, the State Legislative Assembly was also adjourned even as the first phase countrywide lockdown was enforced on March 24.
On March 26, Odisha Government signed MoUs with two private medical colleges to establish 1000-bed COVID hospitals within 15 days in the State for the treatment of infected persons.
Odisha Government’s proactive steps with regard to tackling the menace have been lauded at the national and international levels. Because of the praise-worthy proactive measures of State Government, the State has only 94 Covid-19 positive cases to date while 33 patients have been discharged from hospital.Only one Corona death has been reported in the state so far.
In the meantime, in collaboration with other institutions, as many as 32 COVID -19 hospitals with 5276 beds are kept ready to meet any unforeseen incident. That apart in 6798 Gram Panchayats and 113 Urban local bodies massive arrangements have been made.
One month ago when the first phase lockdown was declared, there were only 536 Corona positive cases in the country which has mounted to over 21,800. Similarly, during this period number of corona death in India has jumped from 10 to 686 as of 23 April 2020.However, to date more than 4400 Covid-19 patients have recovered.
As on 24 March 2020, about 4.25 lakh people were detected with Coronavirus in different countries of the world whereas such a figure jumped to 26.40 lakh within a month. During this period the death toll in corona in the world increased from 19,071 to 1,84,263.