GUWAHATI: The Sarusajai Stadium has replaced the National Health Mission (NHM) headquarters here as the new COVID-19 “war room” with arrangements for thermal screening, data collection and sample collection from inbound people put in place there.
Assam health and family welfare minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma visited the stadium on Wednesday to take stock of the arrangements at the quarantine facility, which can house 790 people at a time.
“We have also tied up with budget hotels where people can be placed on quarantine. Besides, they also have an option to be on paid quarantine in five-star hotels at concessional rates. So, currently we can put as many as 2000 people on facility quarantine at a time in the city,” Sarma told the media here.
The minister said that people from central Assam entering the state through Srirampur and Boxirhat will be sent directly to the Sarusajai quarantine centre here for screening and sample collection.
“Those who test negative will be stamped on the back of both their palms before they are placed on home quarantine. Those who test positive will be sent to the hospital while those who test negative but show symptoms will be placed on facility quarantine, either at Sarusajai or in a hotel of their choice,” Sarma said.
He said that there would be at least one lakh people comprising pilgrims, students and patients or their attendants from the state who are poised to return to Assam. “But it will be difficult to accommodate everyone in facility quarantine and so a majority of them would be placed on home quarantine. Deputy commissioners of the respective districts would be simultaneously intimated about people placed on home quarantine,” the minister said.
Sarma said that very soon a quarantine centre would be opened at Kokrajhar to accommodate people belonging to lower Assam. “Similar quarantine centres would be opened in Jorhat, Tezpur and Silchar to accommodate people belonging to Upper Assam, central Assam and southern Assam respectively,” he said.
The minister also clarified that persons coming in direct contact with any COVID-19 infected person would be placed in 28 days’ quarantine.
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