E-Paper
Guwahati contemplates limited lockdown after community screening detects 114 Covid-19 cases
Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the situation in Assam’s biggest city Guwahati is worrying.
Following the detection of 114 Covid-19 positive cases without travel history during a community screening campaign, Assam and the northeast’s biggest city, Guwahati, is looking at imposition of ward-wise lockdown to arrest spread of the disease.
Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Monday that the situation is worrying and his department has recommended the Kamrup (Metro) administration (under which Guwahati falls) to go for complete lockdown of wards based on the number of cases.
“The situation in Guwahati is alarming. We have got 114 positive cases from the samples given by the public voluntarily at 12 centres in the city. In total we got 144 cases in Guwahati without any travel or contact history,” Sarma told journalists in Guwahati.
The minister warned that unless the public strictly followed safety measures like wearing masks, sanitizing hands frequently and maintaining social distance, the number of cases in Guwahati could rise exponentially in the next few days.
Till now Guwahati had over 100 containment zones. But following detection of the fresh cases, the health department has recommended total lockdown in wards where a sizable number of positive cases are detected. Sarma clarified that the entire city won’t be put under lockdown.
After detection of several positive cases without any travel or contact history, the health department had started a campaign on June 15 to test 50,000 samples in the city within two weeks in a bid to ascertain the spread of Covid-19 in Guwahati.
Besides focusing on areas where trucks coming from other states operated, 12 sample collection centres were also opened across the city where members of the public could give swab samples voluntarily.
Till Monday, nearly 5,000 samples had been collected and results of around 3,000 have been delivered. Sarma said that the target of 50,000 tests would be completed by the end of June.
“We had not expected that people would come on their own and give samples, but were surprised to find that on an average nearly 400 people are coming to the 12 centres daily and giving swabs,
In a bid to increase screening, from Wednesday 31 sample collection centres would be started in government schools across the city where people would be able to come and give swab samples for testing.
“These centres will have a doctor and other healthcare staff and will soon be equipped with TrueNat testing machines so that results can be delivered within hours,” said Sarma.
“We expect the number of cases in Guwahati to rise in coming days. At a later stage depending on the number of cases, our quarantine centres would be converted to Covid care facilities for asymptomatic patients and only symptomatic patients will be admitted to hospitals,” he added.
Assam has recorded 5,586 Covid-19 positive cases till date. There have been 3,521 recoveries and 10 deaths.
