Evaluating Odisha’s COVID-19 response: from quiet confidence to a slippery road

Abstract

Odisha is among handful of states that is at the forefront of India's fight against a rapidly growing COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the national lockdown was imposed by the Union government on March 24, Odisha was only state to have imposed partial lockdown in select districts. It was also first state that took proactive steps to ramp up its health care system particularly having a COVID-19 hospital with intensive care units (ICUs) on public-private partnership mode. Importantly, Odisha was among few states to have created a COVID-19 hospital at each district in record time. In addition, the state took many proactive measures including setting up a taskforce to oversee the COVID-19 response, put up a critical information and communication system with daily press briefings among others to stay on the top of pandemic management. But come May when the migrants rush unfolded, the state experienced steady surge in infections as the pandemic started spreading to relatively dense rural hinterlands. The migrant endowed districts like Ganjam became the epicentres of new spread and the state is struggling to rein on the growing pandemic. What led to the state losing its initial gains? How did the state manage it so ably in the initial period and what led to the surge? What are the unique features of Odisha's pandemic response? Is there an Odisha Model as claimed by several observers? (Patnaik et al. in The Wire, 2020) This paper endeavours to chronicle Odisha's response to COVID-19 in relations to policies and programmes initiatives and actors and dynamics shaping these responses? Key aim is to identify strengths and experience of the eastern state which has a long and credible record of fighting natural disasters.

Strategies and challenges in Kerala’s response to the initial phase of COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative descriptive study

“… 24 25 The long experience with disaster in the state of Odisha had led to the repurposing of crisis prevention measures engaging a vast network of local institutions during the pandemic. 26 Unlike Odisha, Kerala is not historically known for frequent natural calamities; however, in the recent past, the state has been facing several disasters in quick succession. 27 The well-organised local self-governance of the state was further fine-tuned towards emergency preparedness and outbreak response and had facilitated a quick response during the pandemic.…”

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Bhubaneswar, India: findings from three rounds of community surveys

“…The first reported case of COVID-19 in the state of Odisha was detected in Bhubaneswar on 16th March 2020[17]. We carried out a repeated cross-sectional seroepidemiological evaluation for SARS CoV2 infection in 25 wards of the city at 3 different time points between July to September 2020.…”

COVID-19, the Global South and the Pandemic’s Development Impact

“…Odisha's track record of handling regular natural disasters, especially super-cyclones and floods, is credited for this quick thinking, wherein the Chief Minister along with the Natural Calamity Committee declared COVID-19 a 'state disaster' under its Disaster Management Act of 2005. This meant that officials at the district level across different government departments were empowered to act in their respective jurisdictions based on their information and experience (Das and Mishra, 2020;Sahoo and Kar, 2020). A strong governance response included the setting up of an Empowered Group of Ministers; 30 dedicated districtlevel COVID-19 hospitals, allowing health facilities to be independently assessed by World Health Organization (WHO) and UN teams adhering to infection prevention and control parameters; effective monitoring of government control rooms through reviews of surveillance; quarantine facilities; testing and treatment measures at the state, district and block level; engaging with the private sector to trace influenza-like illnesses and severe acute respiratory illnesses; deploying additional task forces including the state's administrative services officials, doctors, laboratory technicians and police personnel to contain the virus in high-risk districts; enhancing its testing capacity and patient care; leveraging technology (Sachetak and WhatsApp mobile applications) to monitor movement of cases and contacts through geographic information systems; dedicated call centres for public queries; and creating temporary medical camps that served as quarantine centres to accommodate 800,000 returning migrants to the state during the pandemic.…”