Assam completes 20 lakh coronavirus tests

GUWAHATI: Assam has completed 20 lakh cumulative tests for Covid-19 so far, even as the fatality figure increased to 260 with the death of eight more patients on Tuesday.
On the other hand, the total count of confirmed cases inched towards the one lakh-mark after 1,973 new cases were reported on Tuesday, taking the state’s count to 94,592.
Of the positive cases reported on Tuesday, 510 are from Kamrup (M) district, 149 from Cachar district, 132 from Jorhat district, 121 from Kamrup (rural) district and 116 from Dibrugarh district.
Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed that the positivity rate is over 5%, which indicates that the present trend shows that for every 100 people tested, five people are Covid-19 positive.
With the completion of this milestone in testing, for every 10 lakh population, 58,356 people are getting tested.
On the doubling time of positive cases, which indicates the speed at which the virus is spreading, the current trend indicates that the spread is slowing gradually.
Sarma informed that at present, the doubling time is 20 days, which is an increase from 16 days reported three weeks back.
On Tuesday, 1,724 patients were discharged from hospitals, taking the cumulative recovery figure to 74,814 patients, while another 19,515 are still under treatment.