COVID-19 cases surge past 9,000 in Assam, death toll at 14

Guwahati: Assam's COVID-19 tally topped the 9,000-mark with 479 new infections, 238 from Guwahati city alone, Health and Family Welfare Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

The state has a total of 9,434 coronavirus cases, of which 3,311 are active, while the number of those recovered stood at 6,106.

"479 new #COVID19+ cases detected today. Out of these, 238 cases were reported from Guwahati city alone. Request people to take proper precautions," the minister tweeted late on Thursday.

Two more persons with comorbidities had died due to COVID-19 on Thursday, taking the total death toll due to the contagion in the state to 14.

The situation in Guwahati city has turned critical with 1,980 positive cases reported in the last 10 days, and a complete lockdown has been imposed for two weeks since June 28 to contain the spread of the virus.

Sarma said the state health department has acquired two lakh 'Rapid Point of Card Antigen Detection Test kits', the new tool approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research for quick diagnosis of COVID-19 in screening centres.

A demo of the kit was conducted at the Guwahati Medical College Hospital and it "gives immediate results, has moderate sensitivity but high specificity", he said.

"In #Guwahati where the spread is rapid, we shall deploy one lakh kits. This, coupled with ongoing gold standard RT-PCR tests, further sharpens our testing abilities," he said in another tweet.

Assam has so far conducted tests of 4,28,886 samples and results of nearly four lakh samples have been uploaded so far on a dedicated state government website.

"Spread in Guwahati is fast, yet we're trying our best to contain it. Appreciate your cooperation during the reimposed #lockdown as we strive to work for #CovidFreeAssam," Sarma added.

A total of 17,652 people in the state are in institutional quarantine and 1,24,947 in home quarantine, according to the bulletin of the health and welfare department.