Odisha: BMC Relaxes COVID Curbs, Allows Visitors to Religious Places Without Vaccine Certificate in Bhubaneswar

The BMC further added that there will not be any condition on priests/sevayats to produce double vaccination certificates at the temple premises.

Bhubaneswar: As the coronavirus cases went down significantly, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday relaxed COVID restrictions and allowed the visitors to religious places without producing the vaccine certificates or ID proofs. In a fresh order, the BMC said that the devotees are no longer required to produce vaccination certificates or ID proofs for a visit to religious institutions in Bhubaneswar.

The BMC further added that there will not be any condition on priests/sevayats to produce double vaccination certificates at the temple premises.

Copy of the order: 

However, the BMC said that the religious institution authorities are required to ensure all COVID appropriate behaviour such as social distancing, mask-wearing and hand sanitization is followed at the premises. Besides, all other restrictions issued earlier (apart from producing vaccination certificates or ID proofs are not needed to visit religious institutions) will be followed strictly, the BMC said.

Earlier, the BMC had allowed children below 15 years to visit the temple/religious institutions with proper proof of identification like Aadhaar card and only under the supervision of their parents or adult relatives from February 12.

Corona cases: Over 9 coronavirus patients have died in Odisha and 342 people tested positive for the pathogen, the Health Department said on Wednesday. The daily positivity rate was 0.58 per cent and 83 children were among those newly infected, a bulletin stated, adding that 58,565 samples were tested in the past 24 hours. The infections are the lowest since 298 cases on January 1. The state had logged 428 COVID-19 cases and 10 deaths on Tuesday.

There are 4,320 active COVID-19 cases and 968 patients recuperated from the disease in the last 24 hours. The tally rose to 12,83,639, including 12,70,221 recoveries.