GUWAHATI: Assam is focusing on reinforcing both home and institutional quarantine to protect the state from community transmission of the novel coronavirus, as thousands of stranded people make their way back to the state.
Addressing reporters here on Monday, state health and family minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the state’s COVID management project would significantly hinge on how effective home and institutional quarantine.
“Most of the patients we have detected have been under quarantine, which bears testimony to the fact that our quarantine system has been effective so far. So people need not panic. So if this trend continues, then, irrespective of the spike in the number of COVID cases, the virus will not spread to the community,” Sarma said.
The minister said that the government was preparing detailed guidelines on how the quarantine system in the state can be improved in the coming days.
“We have come up with a slogan in this regard – ‘Ruthless quarantine with a big heart’ – which means that people have to be strictly under 14 days’ quarantine but we will provide them options such as (paid) hotel stay or avail our facilities, food and medicine,” Sarma said.
The state government, meanwhile, is negotiating with the World Bank in regard to an economic package of Rs 300 crore which we estimate would be the cost of quarantining one lakh people besides covering 4 lakh people under Assam Cares, the financial outreach programme launched for the medical emergency.
“In regard to monitoring effectiveness of the quarantine protocols at the constituency level, a committee would be notified today,” Sarma said.
As many as 48,000 people have returned to the state since the restriction on inter-state travel was lifted by the Centre.
“However, I appeal to those who are outside the state to defer their return from 15 days to a month so that the flow of returnees to the state can be regulated. If people come in huge numbers at a time, they have to be put in camps, on the lines of the flood relief camps, and then the chances of transmission of the virus would be very high,” he said.