46 more test COVID positive in Assam, total cases near 400

Forty-six new COVID-19 positive cases were recorded on Sunday in Assam taking the total to 392, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

A day after the state recorded the highest spike of 87 cases, the rise in numbers continued with 133 positive cases detected since Saturday.

Fourteen cases were recorded on Sunday night with five each from Hojai and Kamrup, two from Kamrup (Metro) and one each from Nagaon and East Karbi Anglong, the Minister said.

Earlier, 20 new cases were reported with six from Nalbari, five from Kamrup, four from Hojai, two each from Kamrup (Metro) and Nagaon and one from Morigaon.

Eight cases, all from the Sarusajai Quarantine Facility, were reported in the evening and four, two from Tezpur Quarantine Centre and two from Jorhat with travel history to Chennai, in the morning.

There has been a "dramatic increase in the number of positive cases in the state during the last few days but almost 90 per cent of the positive cases are from, the quarantine centre", the Minister said at a press conference here.

"If we had not followed the ruthless policy of quarantine, the infection would have spread to the community", the Minister added.

Out of the 392 cases, there are 328 active cases, four deaths, three migrated out of the state and 57 of them recovered and have been discharged from the hospital.

The state recorded 285 cases in a single week since May 18.

Hojai district has the highest number of 86 positive cases followed by Kamrup (Metro) with 48 cases, while Dhemaji is the only district in the state with no cases so far, he said.

The Assam government's ongoing surveillance exercise has covered 25,000 villages and found only 23,000 people which is "very less and 6,000 of them were found to be suffering from Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) and Influenza Like Illness (ILI)", he said.

Out of 6000 cases, 4000 samples were taken and tested and not a single tested positive and "with this we can claim that so far we have been able to save the community due to our quarantine policy", Sarma said.

The Minister said that though the number of cases are increasing, "there is no need to panic as we are prepared with facilities to serve five thousand people".

"We have been planning meticulously for the last two months and the Assam government is adequately prepared to deal with five thousand patients", he said.

During the last two months "we were working with a strategy to create facilities. We have opened enough doors and have adopted the policy to open one door after the other as the situation arises", the Minister said.

Doctors have come forward to volunteer and "we have doctors, nurses, paramedics and cleaners ready to deal with the rising number of cases", he said.

"We have also ramped up the testing facilities and we felt proud that yesterday with 59,553 tests completed so far we had surpassed Kerala, considered a model for healthcare", the Minister said.

The seven laboratories in the state are so far testing 2,500 tests daily but "we expect to reach 5000 in the next few days as automatic extraction machine is being acquired for the purpose", Sarma added.