Foreign returnees to Odisha to be quarantined at Bhubaneswar

With as many as 2,131 persons returning from 80 countries registering their travel details with the Odisha government's portal, three hotels here on Wednesday came forward to make quarantine arrangements for isolation of suspected COVID-19 patients, officials said.

The hotels located in Jaydev Vihar, Kalpana Square and Saheed Nagar areas of the capital city have agreed to provide quarantine facilities to the persons returning from abroad, an official said, adding that a few more big hotels will also be roped in.

The official said the hotel quarantine facility for suspected COVID-19 patients is possibly the first such attempt made by any state government in the country.

Each person will be given a room during their quarantine period of 14 days as per the state government's guidelines, the official said.

Meanwhile, the state government's chief spokesperson on COVID-19, Subrato Bagchi said of the 2,131 returnees, 20 per cent came from the UAE, 9 per cent from the US, 5 per cent from Saudi Arabia, 4 per cent each from the UK and Malaysia and 1 per cent each from Italy, South Korea and France.

He said 37 per cent of the returnees hail from Khurda district, which includes Bhubaneswar, followed by Cuttack, Ganjam, Kendrapara and Balasore.

The 2,131 returnees hail from 29 of the 30 districts, barring Malkangiri, he said.

However, no resident of Odisha has returned from China, Bagchi said.

He said that in the past 24 hours, 5,202 calls were received to the health helpline number 104.