By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, January 5, 2022: With the daily caseload in Odisha breaching the psychological barrier of 1000 to record 1216 new Covid cases on a single day on Wednesday, the State has witnessed the fastest ever spurt by 1000 cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

In the first wave, Odisha had taken 120-long days to record 1000 cases per day. In the catastrophic Delta-led second wave, the State took around 26-long days to detect 1000 cases per day. But in the third wave, Odisha registered a daily caseload of over 1000 in just 9-days time. The State had recorded a spike in cases from December 26 onwards.

In the explosive growth scenario, the doubling rate as of today looks very alarming.

While the doubling time in the first wave in the first week of August (when the cases were moving towards the peak), the rate was around 7 days, the doubling rate during the pre-peak month of April (during April first week) in the deadly second wave was 8 days.

However, the third wave has simply broken all previous records. From a high of over 233 days in Dec end, the doubling rate measured as on today, after the State recorded a high of 1,216 cases, is only 3.01 days.

The State will have to go for preventive measures in order to keep a tab on the projected exponential growth.

When in the first wave, Ganjam district was State’s hotspot, in the second wave, Sundargarh first become the hotspot in the Odisha and was later overtaken by State capital Bhubaneswar.

But in the third wave, the State Capital city has become the hotspot. The weekly positive rate in the Khordha district, including Bhubaneswar, now hovers at over 5 percent.

Moreover, it has earned the dubious distinction in the country by figuring among the top 70 districts that are fuelling the third wave.

The State Capital after a huge gap of around 145 days has clocked a daily caseload of over 300 new Covid cases, despite achieving 100 percent target group vaccination and over 70 percent of the total population.

The Capital city had last registered 304 cases on Aug 14, 2021. And the active cases in the city has risen to 1037, after a gap of over 60 days. At this rate, the City may slip into the red zone sooner than later.

This is presumed so because, when, as per WHO, vaccination and Covid appropriate behaviour are the only tools to cut down the Omicron transmission, Odisha’s Capital has exhausted the Vaccination tool, and still the cases are roaring back.

Odisha government has to enforce the Covid appropriate behaviour or else the Omicron situation will spiral out of hand to acquire explosive nature