Assam registers highest Covid-19 spike, 300 up... Appeal to returnees: Come back in phases

People queue up at ticket counters at Guwahati railway station on Saturday after the passenger reservation system was reopened from Friday. Picture by UB Photos

TT, 24.05.20,  Guwahati: Assam on Saturday registered its highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases, prompting Dispur to immediately convert two hospices here into exclusive hospitals to treat coronavirus patients and appealing to the stranded not to rush home as it was “no longer safe”.

The day saw 70 new Covid-19 cases, taking the total to 329 by evening, of whom 44 are from the Sarusajai quarantine centre here. Friday had seen 49 positive cases, the highest one-day spike till then. Of the 329 cases, 268 are active.

The rise has been alarming. The state had 100 cases till Sunday, rising to 210 on Thursday and 329 on Saturday. If it took four days to cross the 200-mark from 100 cases, the jump from 200 to 300 took only two days.

The rise in cases saw the health department convert Kalapahar and Sonapur hospitals into Covid-19 hospices and there are plans to ready more beds at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital in case the increase does not stop. Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital (MMCH), where Covid-19 cases are being treated, has already run out of beds.

While chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal urged the people not to panic over the rapid spike in Covid-19 cases over the past few days, health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, after inspecting the newly-built Kalapahar TB Hospital, which started taking patients from Saturday evening, appealed to the stranded to “think twice” before returning home.

“It is no longer safe. They should stay where they are for their own safety and that of their near ones. It is my earnest appeal that they should return in phases,” he said.

Sarma said he will be also writing to other state governments not to allow the stranded from Assam to travel without adhering to strict social distancing.

“What is happening is that most of them have picked up the infection on the way to Assam, since they are coming in buses and trucks ignoring social distancing norms. They should avoid this and come in phases. I will write to the originating states not to allow the stranded to travel, if they are not adhering to social distancing norms,” Sarma said.

The day also saw the Kamrup (metro) district administration declare two containment zones — at Dinesh Ojah Path in Tarun Nagar, after detection of a Covid-19 patient, and the other at the CRPF Group Centre at 9 Mile. Six CRPF personnel had tested positive on Friday night at the centre where they were quarantined, after they arrived on a flight along with 92 others. They admitted to the GMCH where steps are on to arrange more beds for the affected.

In lower Assam’s Dhubri district, one more positive case was detected on Saturday, taking its Covid-19 count to 10. On Thursday, four persons tested positive for Covid-19. The five patients, detected this month, had all returned from other states and were in mass quarantine centres. The five patients have been sent to Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College and Hospital at Barpeta for treatment.

The Dhubri administration has declared Talowa and Natabari Part-II village under Tamarhat police station, Dalaner Alga Part-II village under Gauripur police station and Katlamari Part-III village under Fakirganj police station as containment zones.

Altogether 11,237 people, who have returned from outside, have been put in 105 institutional quarantine centres across the district. Out of them, 1,972 people were quarantined on Saturday.

Preventive measures: The deputy commissioners of eastern Arunachal Pradesh districts issued preventive measures on Saturday, in view of the recent Covid-19 cases in bordering districts of Assam. The move came after one patient was detected in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district on Friday night and another in Dibrugarh district on Thursday. Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts share borders with eastern Arunachal Pradesh districts.

PCC request

While Dispur is clearly not in favour of the stranded rushing home because most of the infected are returnees, Assam PCC president Ripun Bora wrote a letter to railway minister Piyush Goyal requesting him to provide some more trains to Assam so that lakhs of stranded persons willing to return can come back.

Bora pointed out that only four trains had been provided to stranded people of Assam, which is “not at all sufficient considering 20 lakh stranded migrant workers, students and other people of Assam working in different places of the country”.

The present provision of trains to Assam will not touch Kerala, Goa, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu (Chennai), Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat, among others, where the maximum number of people from Assam are stranded, he pointed out.

Additional reporting by Mukesh Kumar Singh in Dhubri and Manoj Kumar Ojha in Doomdooma