Assam Sees Spike of 87 New COVID-19 Cases on Saturday

The state government will write to other states to ensure that buses and trucks carrying people without maintaining social distancing are not allowed movement.

AssamHealth Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday asked people not to return tothe state unless "absolutely necessary" as 87 more people testedpositive for coronavirus, the highest single-day jump, taking the total tallyto 346.

He also said that the situation in Assam has reached achallenging phase and the government will write to other states to ensure thatbuses and trucks carrying people without maintaining social distancing are notallowed movement.

Out of the 346 positive cases, 282 are active, four personsdied, three migrated out of the state and 57 have recovered and discharged fromthe hospital.

Assam has so far tested 60,408 samples and out of these 346 persons have tested positive, 54,185 found negative and the remaining results are awaited.

The capacity of the Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital has been filled and new patients will now be kept at the Kalapahar Hospital which has been declared a COVID hospital and will function as an annexee of the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) from Saturday. GMCH has been kept for serious patients, the Minister said.

"The situation in Assam has reached a challenging phase.Assam is not safe and people from other states should not return home, if it isnot absolutely necessary," Sarma said.

The state government will write to other states to ensure thatbuses and trucks carrying people without maintaining social distancing are notallowed movement, he said.

The minister claimed that the recent increase in the number ofcases was mostly due to people not maintaining protocol while travelling byroad in crowded vehicles.

"There has not been a single positive case among studentswhose travel was arranged under the supervision of the state government asstrict COVID protocols were followed," he said.

The minister said that quarantine of people coming from outsidethe state will be strictly enforced as "ruthless quarantine with humaneheart is our policy".

"We will not allow anyone to go for home quarantine beforespending seven full days in institutional facilities," he asserted.