Bhubaneshwar:
A family of three is being termed a COVID-19 “super spreader” in Odisha’s Rayagada district as it is being said to be the source of infection to 87 people in a village, a senior official said Friday. The family — a man, his wife and their daughter – had returned to their village, called Bijaypur, from Andhra Pradesh a fortnight ago, Odisha government’s COVID-19 spokesperson Subroto Bagchi said here.
They went to the village after remaining in institutional-quarantine, and were advised home-quarantine, he said. During their home-quarantine, the family members allegedly did not adhere to prescribed norms and came in contact with several people in the village, Bagchi said, pointing out that even a single coronavirus positive person, though asymptomatic, can transmit the disease to many others.
The three family members were first detected to be COVID-19 positive, and during contact-tracing, 13 villagers also tested positive for the deadly virus, Rayagada district collector Pramod Kumar Behera said. Other 74 villagers tested positive since Thursday. With this, a total of 90 people — including the three member of the family — of Bijaypur have tested positive, he said.
The tribal-dominated district has so far detected 115 cases of which 22 patients have recovered. At present, there are 93 cases who are admitted at the COVID-19 hospital in JK Pur and another dedicated facility in Gunupur. Bijaypur is a village from where the highest number of 90 COVID-19 cases has been detected so far in the state.
