GUWAHATI:  With the boosting of “capacities”, Assam is confident it can test 10,000 samples of COVID-19 a day.

Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday told journalists that the state government had acquired capacities to conduct 10,000 tests a day.

“We reached the milestone of testing one lakh people so far. We have surpassed many states. We are going to achieve two lakh tests definitely by June 15. We are convinced that we have acquired capacities to conduct 10,000 tests a day,” the Minister said.

He said by ramping up tests, the government would reduce the period of institutional quarantine to four days by June 10 thereby saving public money. He, however, said nobody would be sent to home quarantine without his or her samples being tested and he or she turns negative.

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“We will have three layers of facilities for treatment. We will treat highly-symptomatic patients in medical colleges. We will treat people, who are not symptomatic but could be vulnerable, in district hospitals. The non-symptomatic patients will be treated in Mahatma Gandhi Model Hospitals in the villages. We have decided to activate 50 model hospitals. They together can house 2,500 patients,” Sarma said.

He said the state has facilities to treat 4,232 COVID-19 patients at a time.

Giving out the state-wise figures of returnees who tested positive, he said 1,124 of the total 1,272 cases in Assam were that of the returnees. He said 333 of them had come from Tamil Nadu, 312 from Maharashtra, 134 from Delhi and 111 from West Bengal. He advised people to be wary of people, who came from these states, and were going for home quarantine.

“We have so far 1,272 COVID-19 positive cases. But only 24 patients had no travel history. So, they are the Assam cases. The rest are Tablighi Jamaatis and their contacts and the returnees. Had there been no inter-state travel, we wouldn’t have got these cases,” the Minister said.

He said except for one-two cases, the disease was not in the community in the state.