Covid 4th wave: 64 students in 2 Odisha hostels test positive, all asymptomatic

At least 64 students in Rayagada district of Odisha have tested positive for Covid-19, with the state reporting 71 new cases on Sunday, officials said.

This is the highest number of cases reported on a single day in about two months. The health department has asked all district collectors to prepare micro planning to keep the rate of infection in check.

According to District Welfare Officer of Rayagada Ashok Satpathy, RT-PCR test of 257 hostel students was conducted by the health department on May 4. Of the 257 boys, 44 tested positive. All of them are asymptomatic. Following the detection of Covid cases, children who have tested positive were isolated from others.

Students of eight English-medium schools of Rayagada stay in the hostel. On the other hand, 20 girl students of a government high school in Bissamkatak block of the district have also tested positive for Covid-19. District Collector Saroj Kumar Mishra confirmed that 64 cases were reported from the two hostels.

With this, the state’s Covid-19 tally increased to 12,88,202. The death toll stood at 9,126 with no new fatality. There are 160 active cases in the state at present, while 12,78,863 people have recovered from the infection. Over the last month and an half, Odisha was reporting only 8-15 new cases every day.

Meanwhile, the district welfare officers have been asked to arrange masks for all students and teachers and ensure social distancing and other Covid appropriate behaviour. They have also been asked to provide 100% health screening of all boarders in residential schools with school-wise action plan prepared by the district welfare officers for conduct of health screening of all student boarders.