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Special trains: All passengers returning to Assam to be quarantined, only symptomatic persons will be tested
Earlier, the state government had decided to test all the Assam-bound passengers, but the plan was abandoned because of the influx and the strategy was tweaked in line with the Centre’s directives.
Assam government on Tuesday announced that all the passengers returning by trains to the state over the next few weeks would have to undergo a mandatory 9-14 day quarantine and only symptomatic coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients would be tested.
“As per the Centre’s guidelines, swab samples of symptomatic Covid-19 patients will be collected and tested. But everyone coming back to Assam will have to undergo a mandatory quarantine between nine and 14 days,” state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Earlier, the state government had decided to test all the Assam-bound passengers, but the plan was abandoned because of the influx and the strategy was tweaked in line with the Centre’s directives.
“So far, we’re dealing with a few Covid-19 positive cases. But, the scenario has changed since Tuesday. It’ll be impossible to test thousands of passengers returning by trains, as it’ll take days to get the results,” Sarma said.
The first train, carrying around 1,000 passengers from Delhi, will reach Dibrugarh in Upper Assam on Wednesday.
Around 7,000 passengers are likely to come back to Assam by seven trains from Delhi over the next week.
The state government had requested the Union Ministry of Railways to arrange 12 trains, including the seven from Delhi, to repatriate people to the state, who were stranded across the country, including south and west India.
Passengers arriving by trains would be screened at railways stations, where they would disembark. The symptomatic patients would be directly taken to dedicated Covid-19 hospitals and the others would be lodged in state-run quarantine facilities.
The passengers would be placed in isolation at their respective homes after completion of their 9-14-day mandatory quarantine.
Committees are being formed in each block and village to ensure compliance with home quarantine guidelines.
“We’ve asked all the 33 districts in the state to set up quarantine facilities for up to 2,500 people each. If the influx of returnees go up, then we’ll have to set up quarantine facilities in each of the 126 assembly constituencies in the state,” Sarma said.
A total of 3,597 people, stranded in other parts of the country, have arrived in Assam between May 4 and Tuesday either by their own vehicles or buses.
Similarly, 3,507 people stranded in other states in the north-east have returned to Assam.
“We’re receiving the results of the test of the returnees. All of them, except one, have tested negative and they would soon be released from the quarantine facilities,” the minister added.
Assam has reported 65 Covid-19 positive cases to date, of which two persons have died and 40 have recovered. Another 23 are still undergoing treatment in various Covid-19 dedicated hospitals in the state.
Sarma said that the community surveillance initiative started last week by teams of doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians have so far covered 10,000 villages and detected 7,782 people with symptoms of fever, cough, and respiratory ailments. The teams will visit another 10,000 villages over the next few days.
