GUWAHATI: Assam Health Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that the pressure on quarantine centres in the state would come down drastically from the first week of July as the number of returnees by train is poised to dip substantially from Wednesday.
Addressing reporters here on Monday, Sarma said that there would be hardly any Shramik Special trains coming to the state after June 23, thereby reducing the load on quarantine centres thereafter.
“So far, we have had 175 trains bringing people to the state. On June 15, we had 8586 returnees by train whereas the figure came down to about 5000 yesterday. Post June 23, we can expect this figure to dip further to between 1500 and 2000,” Sarma said.
As on date, 2, 43,414 citizens have returned to the state since inter-state travel restriction was lifted in early May, of which about 1, 09,000 passengers have travelled by train.
“All of them have been quarantined which in itself is a big achievement. The figure of course excludes the 75,000 returnees from the other Northeast states,” the minister said.
Accordingly, he said that the number of COVID-19 cases would also come down from the first week of July even as a surge is anticipated till the end of June, which might take the overall tally close to 6500 cases.
The minister however said that there was no need for any panic, as the surge is the outcome of the increasing number of tests conducted every day.
“We have already touched the figure of 3lakh COVID tests today, and the tempo has picked up substantially from June 13, when we had conducted 2 lakh tests,” Sarma said.
Recovery rate
The minister said that Assam currently ranks second in the country with a 63.3 per cent recovery rate. “Till Monday evening, the state has recorded 5586 positive cases, of which 3521 have been discharged after recovery,” he said.
“The mortality rate (with 10 deaths) is also among the lowest at 0.16 per cent, excluding the other Northeast states,” Sarma said.
Doubling rate
“Another encouraging trend is that the doubling rate (of COVID-19 positive cases) has increased from three days on May 23 last to seven days on June 8 and 13 days on June 22,” he added.