With over 6000 COVID-19 cases daily, has Odisha hit plateau?

Bhubaneswar: With Odisha consistently reporting over 6,000 cases daily, the case graph seems to have hit a plateau in last few days.

“Since the daily cases are found stable at a particular level in past five days, it could be interpreted as a plateau phase. The number or such period is expected to decline in the upcoming days,” informed DMET Odisha Director Dr. CBK Mohanty.

However, the top health official said that nothing can be assumed specifically now.

Ruling out the report of ‘ICU bed shortage’, Dr. Mohanty said that there are many ICU beds in hospitals.

If the number of COVID patients rises further, the more number of ventilators will be set up accordingly, he said.

On the other hand, Odisha Health Director Niranjan Mishra said that 70% of beds are currently available in different hospitals for COVID patients in the State.

“We have constituted a cluster comprising 2/3 districts. The patients are shifted to other districts after beds are filled at hospitals in a particular district,” Mishra said.

Talking about stock of oxygen, he said that Odisha is an ‘oxygen surplus’ State.

“To avoid shortage of oxygen, directions have been issued to keep the oxygen stock by filling the cylinders. We have enough beds, oxygen and medicines to tackle the COVID situation,” he said.

The micro management plan has been made to administer the COVID vaccines to the beneficiaries in the State, he added.