Assam reported 12 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the total number of Covid-19 positive cases to 13 and prompting health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to announce that the state had entered a critical phase. The state reported its first coronavirus case on Tuesday.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Sarma made public names of the affected four. They are Arshad Ali, 19, from Nalbari, Hajrat Ali, 60, Nuruddin, 55 and Jonab Ali, 46 all three from Jagiroad in Morigaon district. Late in the evening following other test reports, he said nine more persons had tested positive. “All these new cases are from the testing lab of Jorhat,” he said.
“With the new detection, Assam has entered a critical phase now,” Sarma said.
All the four patients had visited the Islamic religious congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi early this month, Sarma added. “As of now, they are fine. Their samples will continue to be tested every five days and once they test negative, they will be released,” he said regarding the four patients.
He said their names were made public so that others who were in contact with them can visit their nearest hospitals.
Sarma said in addition to the Centre’s list of 456 people from Assam who were in and around Nizamuddin Markaz, 91 more were found to be in the area, taking the number of people in and around the area to 547. He said after preliminary inquiry it was found that 134 of them had crossed that area in vehicles and did not attend the congregation. He said the health department was also keeping an eye on them. Sarma said 68 of the 547 people had not returned. The remaining, over 340, have returned, of whom 230 have been identified. He said throughout Tuesday night the health department collected samples of 196 of the 230 people which are being tested. “We are dealing with a terrible situation. We do not know how many people those who returned home after March 16 had contact with,” he said.
Sarma added screening tests from various places found more Covid-19 positive cases and said after confirmatory tests the number may touch double digits. He said among those who stayed back in Delhi, four had tested Covid-19 positive. He appealed to those who were in contact with the four persons and returned home to call 104.
Those who have tested positive in New Delhi are Naskar Ali, 72 (Baksa), Faharuddin, 48 (Baksa), Mustafa Ahmed, 60 (Barpeta), and Md Ali, 65 (Nagaon).
Two persons who returned from Delhi to Dhubri have been quarantined at Dhubri civil hospital. Dhubri superintendent of police Yuvraj said all data regarding people attending the event was available with police and the verification process about their movement was under way.
Dhubri police on Tuesday night arrested one Sainul Hoque, 26, a resident of Kalahat village, for allegedly objectionable social media posts against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sarma.
The state government had 9,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) kits and 80,000 N95 masks, the minister said. So far 6,252 people had donated Rs 8.28 crore to Assam Arogya Nidhi.
Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday urged all to stand united in the fight against coronavirus. AASU also appealed to people to make the lockdown successful and cooperate with the government. It appealed to the government to set up testing centres in each district.
The samples of 27 people from Dibrugarh collected on Tuesday were found to be negative on Wednesday.
Nabajyoti Gogoi, nodal officer of the joint director of health services, Dibrugarh, said: “Yesterday we collected 27 samples from Dibrugarh and nearly half of the people went to the religious congregation at Nizamuddin. All 27 tested negative. Today we collected 15 samples ,” Gogoi said.
“We have put 3,600 people under home quarantine in Dibrugarh district. Their health is being monitored,” Gogoi said.
Additional reporting by Mukesh Kumar Singh in Dhubri and Avik Chakraborty in Dibrugarh