GUWAHATI, June 10: The Assam government on Thursday said the “unlock” process in the state was likely to start by mid-June but would be “gradual and based on a scientific pattern.”
Speaking to reporters, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated that the “unlock process in the state would start once the COVID cases dip further by mid June.”
“We will however not go for a total unlock but relax restrictions in districts where COVID cases have come down drastically. So the districts reporting fewer daily cases will see lesser curbs in the coming days than those with relatively higher cases,” Sarma said.
He further pointed out that the state had adhered to a balanced method of enforcing restrictions amid surging COVID cases over the past couple of months keeping in mind the fact that both lives and livelihoods of people had to be protected.
“In fact, Assam is the only state that has fought COVID without enforcing a total lockdown so far. Even then, about 50 percent of daily cases have come down in the districts, and more so in Kamrup Metro in the past one month. We would have wanted fewer cases by now though,” the chief minister said.
The state has, in order to break the COVID-19 transmission chain, been adhering to a “partial lockdown” characterised by curfew from early afternoon to the dawn of next day.
Shops and commercial establishments have been permitted to open from early morning till noon only while inter-district movement remains prohibited.