The Odisha government declared a 60-hour complete shutdown in Jajpur, Bhadrak and Balasore districts from 10 p.m. on Thursday(23rd April) post a rapid rise in COVID-19 positive cases in the respective districts.
“In the past 5 days, 29 COVID-19 positive cases have been reported, and 28 are from Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur. We have to move to a higher level of preparedness in these districts,” Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy stated while he announced the imposition of a total shutdown in these three districts till 10 a.m. on Monday(27th April).
“These three districts have become a cause of concern for us with most cases linked to West Bengal, and therefore a decision to go in for a complete shutdown has been taken,” said Tripathy. Testing in these areas would be scaled, and common places sanitised as was done in the Bhubaneswar. Notably, Bhubaneswar so far has the highest number of cases in Odisha.