Lockdown & Night Curfews not to be imposed in Assam: Himanta Biswa Sarma

GUWAHATI: Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today rubbished reports of another lockdown or night curfew in the state to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which is seeing another surge in India with the coming of the "second wave."

"The second wave of COVID-19 has started and we have seen the second wave after a year and need to take precautions,” said Sarma while addressing a joint press conference at BJP headquarter at Hengrabari.

Biswa Sarma further stated that 35 thousand tests will be conducted today while on Wednesday, 18000 tests have been conducted, and thereafter 1 lakh tests will be conducted.

"[...] that we are going to open COVID care centres, there will a lockdown, school will be closed -- there is no need to panic over this. However, over the next 7 days, we will ramp up testing to one lakh. The numbers might rise. We will ramp up testing so that we can celebrate Bihu properly," Sarma told media persons. "Last year, many artistes incurred losses and we do not want that this time. We are going to issue an SOP. There will be no lockdown and Bihu will be celebrated with fanfare."

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Sarma also exhorted people above 45 years of age and assured that all the variants available in India are "harmless." "The rest of the people also do not have to panic and all the doctors and nurses are vaccinated. We are well prepared to manage it nicely."

Assam reported 195 new COVID-19 cases in a high single-day spike on Wednesday, taking the active caseload to 847, while the overall cases have touched 2,19,027.

With the recovery of 31 patients today, the total number of recoveries is 2,15,722 cases. The state’s recovery rate stands at 98.49 percent.

Out of the new cases today, Kamrup reported the highest with 104 cases, followed by Dibrugarh at 19, Kamrup at 16 cases, and Tinsukia at 12.

A total of 21,162 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. Yesterday's positivity rate was 0.92 percent.

The total cumulative COVID-19 tests conducted are 73,32,580 and were tested per million population of 2.13 lakhs.

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