Odisha extends lockdown by two more weeks till June 1

The Odisha government has extended the Covid-19 lockdown by more than two weeks till June 1 as coronavirus cases continue to rise in some districts of the state. The state government, in a statement on Tuesday, said, there will be a lockdown in the state from May 19 till June 1 (5 am). On weekends, too, there will be a complete shutdown and it'll start from 6 pm on Friday till 5 am Monday. The earlier lockdown, imposed on May 5, was effective till May 19 only. The state government's directive says all health services will remain fully operational during the lockdown.

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Patnaik said as more waves of infections are expected, there's a need to remain prepared for the long-drawn battle. "Vaccination is our main strategy to fight the virus. Given the vaccine supply issues in the country, we have floated a global tender to procure vaccines quickly to protect our people," he said.

Meanwhile, Odisha's COVID-19 caseload surged to 6,33,302 on Tuesday after 10,321 more people tested positive for the infection, while 22 fresh fatalities pushed the toll to 2,357, a health department official said. Accordingly, the number of active cases climbed to 1,04,539, he said.

Of the 10,321 new cases, 5,779 were reported from various quarantine centres and the rest detected during contact tracing, the official said. Five districts reported less than 100 cases -- Dhenkanal and Malkangiri at 77 each, Sonepur at 73, Gajapati at 56, and Kandhamal at 54. Odisha's positivity rate stands at 5.76 per cent. Over 1.09 crore samples have been tested for COVID-19 so far, including 56,684 on Monday.

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