Odisha’s COVID-19 recovery rate higher in country: Govt

Bhubaneswar: Amidst the rising trend of  COVID-19 positive cases in Odisha in the recent past, the recovery and fatality rates of the state seem to be good indicators in the fight against the deadly virus.

At a meeting held here, Chief Secretary Asit Tripahy today informed that Odisha’s all indexes in COVID-19 management are encouraging as compared to other states. The state, which is in 14th place in the country’s COVID-19 recovery index,  has a recovery rate of 68.6 per cent as against 70. 3 per cent of the country,

So far, 34, 805 patients have recovered in the state.  Similarly, the fatality rate of the state stands at 0.60 %.

Regarding plasma therapy, the Chief Secretary informed while 10 patients have completely recovered from the disease through the therapy so far, 132 are currently undergoing treatment . Besides, 98 patients being treated  through the therapy are showing noticeable improvement. Total five plasma banks have been launched in the state in the last three weeks.

The meeting also decided to felicitate plasma donors during Independence Day celebration at district levels. Besides, it has also been decided to open more number of RT-PCR machines in three Government medical colleges and increase the number of testing labs in the state.

At the meeting, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik held discussion with COVID Observers of Kendrapada, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur, Dhenkanal, Bhadrak, Balasore and Cuttack and enquired about the situation in the districts.

Expressing contentment over conduct of highest 32,000 tests in a single day yesterday, the CM asked Collectors to begin testing facility as Sub-divisional hospitals and Community Health Centres (CHCs) across the state. He also asked BDOs and Gram Panchayat representatives to motivate people to voluntarily come forward for COVD-19 test.

Considering Global experiences as well as experiences from different states that home isolation provides better and early healing for asymptomatic and persons with mild symptoms, Patnaik also stressed on home isolation of patients both in urban and rural areas.

The fear for the disease and stigma around it must be removed from the people’s mind so that more and more people would opt for home isolation. A home isolation kit comprising dos and don’ts, few basic medicines and a list of telephone numbers of doctors, counsellors/ tele-medicine professionals and Govt officials may be distributed among all such persons to enable them to call appropriate numbers regarding medical, psycho-social and other assistance if and when required.

CM Naveen Patnaik.

However, patients who have no such facilities at home will be taken care of at COVID Care Centre and Covid Care Homes, he added.