In biggest single-day spike, 15 test Covid +ve in Assam

GUWAHATI: Assam reported 15 fresh Covid-19 positive cases, all from Guwahati, on Wednesday evening, marking the biggest single-day spike the state has witnessed so far. With this, the state’s total number of cases has increased to 79.
Earlier in the day, one patient was discharged from hospital, increasing the number of cured persons to 39 and leaving 37 active cases in the state. One positive person has already migrated to Bihar and two patients have died.
The 15 new cases in Guwahati have been reported from among a group of 32 close contact people, who are in home quarantine since Monday, after one of them had tested positive on that day.
Twenty-nine of them were working in a potato godown, one is their manager, one a barber and another is a driver who had transported these people to their place of stay at a hotel in the Fancy Bazar area.
“There is no need to panic with this spike because we had home quarantined all these 32 people who were in contact with the positive case reported on Monday. Most of them were working in a potato godown and have no travel history. They had come in contact with truck drivers transporting potatos from outside the state. We had collected swabs of all these 32 people and 15 of them have tested positive. The rest are Covid-negative,” health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The Kamrup (Metro) district has declared four containment zones in Santipur, Railway Colony, Kumapara and Fatasil areas where these people were quarantined. The Fancy Bazar area is already under containment since Monday.
“There was no permission for barbers to work but this particular barber has violated the rules and that is how so many people have come in contact with him,” Sarma said, indicating that the man might have spread the virus to several others, who have not yet become symptomatic or traced out. The last such big single-day spike of 12 positive cases was on April 1. However, the cases were reported from three districts — Morigaon (3), Nalbari (1) and Golaghat(8).
Guwahati, which is in green zone, has reported 23 positive cases so far — the highest in any district. Out of these, 22 cases have been reported in the last six days, which include one doctor from Guwahati Medical College and Hospital and another female doctor from the Regional Dental College here. One of the patients, a 16-year-old girl, had tested positive after her death.