New wave of Covid seems to be more infectious and might create a devastating situation: Odisha CM

Bhubaneswar, April 6: Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik urged the Chief Secretary, ACS Health and Family Welfare and senior officials concerned to visit the Western Odisha districts with high incidence of the Covid positive cases and make an on the ground assessment and take suitable urgent action. Patnaik while reviewing the Covid-19 situation said that the entire world is encountering resurgence in Covid-19 virus. “Many states of our country are also witnessing spikes in proliferation of the disease. We have been observing an increasing trend in the virus spread in recent weeks within Odisha as well. We have been able to successfully control the first wave of Covid in spite of a challenging situation when the nature of the virus was unknown. We are now battle hardened and I am sure we will be able to successfully tackle this resurgence of the virus infection. We have to reactivate all our protocols and make the entire machinery work with enthusiasm and vigour,” said Patnaik. He further directed the Health department to immediately redeploy doctors, paramedics, lab technicians to Western Odisha districts to strengthen the manpower required to fight the virus. “There should be sufficient hospital capacity to take care of the increasing cases. Adequate ambulances with oxygen supply need deployed in the highly affected areas and proper monitoring systems to be put in place to ensure that any emergency call is addressed timely and with a sense of urgency and sensitivity. There should be no complaints about non-responsiveness of ambulances or lack of beds in the hospitals,” he added.