By Bizodisha Bureau, April 23, 2020: Odisha government on Thursday ordered a complete shutdown, akin to curfew, in three districts which witnessed rising cases in last ten days.

Chief secretary, Asit Tripathy said, a curfew has been imposed in Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur districts from 10 pm on Thursday for Covid-19 surveillance. The curfew will be operational till 26 April, 2020, he added.

Six more fresh Covid-19 cases were reported in the state on Thursday taking the total number of positive cases to 89. While four detected are from Jajpur district, the remaining two were from Balasore district, official said.

All the four cases from Jajpur are relatives of previously detected West Bengal returnees while the two cases reported from Balasore were contacts of a COVID-19 case detected earlier, an official statement said.

With this, the total number of positive cases increased to 12 and 10 in Jajpur and Balasore districts respectively, the officials said.

While contact tracing of the six patients was initiated immediately, the State government deputed three of its senior officials to oversee the containment measures in the districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur.

These three districts have reported as many as 33 cases till Thursday and a majority of them include those who had recently returned from the neighbouring State, their family members and close contacts.

The capital city of Bhubaneswar has recorded the highest number of 46 cases in the State. As on Thursday, 10 of the State’s 30 districts had recorded COVID-19 cases.

Of the total 89 cases as many as 33 had been discharged from hospitals after treatment by Thursday. While one patient had died earlier, 55 persons are under treatment at different exclusive COVID-19 hospitals.

Meanwhile, the State government’s high level inter-ministerial committee on the pandemic decided to increase testing to 3,000 samples per day by the end of this month. A total of 15,984 samples had been tested in the State till midnight on Wednesday.

The meeting, held via video conferencing, also discussed the implementation of a special plan that had been drawn up to deal with the emerging situation in the districts of Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur.

The Ministers also emphasised the role of gram panchayats with regard to registration of Odia migrant workers who are expected to return to the State in large number in the coming weeks.

As many as 32 COVID-19 hospitals have been made operational in the State, with a combined bed strength of 5,276.

Meanwhile, the state government has intensified vigil on the Odisha-West Bengal border as police on Wednesday barricaded 57 roads connecting Balasore and Mayurbhanj districts to West Bengal. Security has been strengthened along the border to ensure no one escapes unnoticed. As many as 10 platoons have been deployed on the border routes for round the clock surveillance.