Odisha extends COVID-19 lockdown till April 30

Amidst the rising coronavirus cases in India, the Odisha government has decided to extend lockdown till April 30.

Schools will remain closed till June 17, said CM Naveen Patnaik on Thursday.

In a statement after the meeting, Patnaik said Odisha would also ask the Centre not to resume train and air services till April 30. Schools and educational institutions would remain closed till June 17, he said.

According to Union health ministry data, Odisha has reported 42 confirmed Covid-19 cases so far. One person has died in the state due to coronavirus disease.

On April 3, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation announced it is creating a “containment zone”, a nearly rectangular area with 1.5 km length and 800 metre width that centred on a housing complex, the epicentre of the local outbreak with 18 positive cases of coronavirus disease. On Twitter, the city’s municipal body released a map showing a black dotted line along the busy Cuttack-Puri road indicating the contours of the zone which it said no one can enter or exit as long as the containment orders were on.

With Odisha reporting its first death due to Covid-19 on Tuesday when a 72-year-old retired government servant died in AIIMS Bhubaneswar, the authorities have stepped up surveillance and testing. After Surya Nagar and Bomikhal, the officials added Jadupur, Kapilaprasad, Sundarpada and finally Satya Nagar as conatinent zones.

Ten villages in Kendrapara district, a gram panchayat in Bhadrak district and a village in Jajpur district have also been declared as containment zones.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)