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As number of returnees surge, Assam ramps up Covid-19 testing facilities
The state has reported 393 Covid-10 cases so far. There have been four fatalities while 58 have recovered.
With thousands returning by roads and railways and domestic flights resuming from Monday, Assam has ramped up facilities to test all those coming back to the state.
Assam has conducted nearly 60,000 tests at the seven government testing facilities since mid-March till Sunday afternoon. The state has reported 393 Covid-10 cases so far. There have been four fatalities while 58 have recovered.
Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that at present nearly 2,500 tests were being carried out daily and in the next 7-10 days the figure would double to around 5000 tests daily with addition of three private labs to the existing seven government facilities.
“It was a pleasant surprise to see Kerala CM mentioning they had tested 52,000 till Saturday while our figure had crossed 56,000. There’s no competition with Kerala, but since that state is cited as a role model, it felt good to know we tested more samples than them,” said Sarma in a press conference.
“The credit of this goes to all our healthcare workers and technicians who have been working tirelessly for two months now. I congratulate them on this feat,” he added.
Since lifting of the ban on inter-state movement, Assam has seen a huge spike in cases in the past week. Of the total positive cases, nearly 300 were of people who had returned to the state by road and trains post May 4.
“The spike has happened in the past seven days and hence our recovery rate has dropped to 16% in comparison to the national figure of 41%. The death rate in Assam is 1.14%,” said Sarma.
“At present almost all 33 districts in the state have recorded positive patients except Dhemaji while Hojai tops the list with 77 cases. Thankfully, nearly 90% of our total cases have been reported from quarantine facilities. Therefore we have been able to prevent community spread of infection through our policy of ruthless quarantine,” he added.
Till Sunday nearly 44,000 people had entered Assam by road from other states in the region and across the country. Another 16,000 people have come back by trains in the past few days.
From Monday when domestic flights resume, the state is expecting at least 2,000 people to return daily by over two dozen flights to Guwahati’s Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport.
“Our community surveillance program has covered 25,000 villages in the state and found symptoms of fever in nearly 23,000 people. Thankfully, none of them have been detected positive for Covid-19. This shows that there is no community spread yet in Assam,” Sarma said.
