With 7 fresh cases, Assam's Covid-19 tally rises to 86

GUWAHATI: Seven people, including three cancer patients and a 13-year-old girl with heart surgery along with three attendants, all of who had returned from Mumbai on Tuesday and have been on institutional quarantine since then in Guwahati, tested positive for Covid-19 in Assam on Friday.
With these, 22 positive cases have been reported in Guwahati in the past 24 hours, which have pushed the state's tally to 86. On Wednesday, 15 cases were reported in Guwahati, which was the biggest single-day spike so far.
“All the seven positive people have been admitted in Guwahati Medical College and Hospital and the other patients who had come with them from Mumbai, have tested negative and have been sent to 14 days home quarantine,” health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
“When we were bringing 132 patients and their attendants from Mumbai we knew that some of them would test positive because they have been staying in Mumbai where there are so many cases and also two other patients staying with them at Assam Bhawan had tested positive there,” Sarma said.
“One of the cancer patients, who has tested negative, is still in institutional quarantine because his attendant has tested positive and taken to GMCH. We want to keep this cancer patient under observation for few more days,” Sarma added.
Popular singer Zubeen Garg, his wife and his two friends, who had come from Mumbai by a hired bus on Tuesday, have tested negative and have been shifted from institutional quarantine to 14 days home quarantine.
Since May 4, as many as 11,102 people have returned to Assam from other states and only 18 of them have tested positive so far.
“I do not want to interpret this ratio between number of people who have come in and the positive persons among them. It is just the beginning and the pandemic is an evolving situation…nothing final can be said now,” Sarma said.