Assam’s doubling rate of coronavirus infection has deteriorated from 27 days to merely six days.

Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the state has seen a sharp spike in the number of Covid cases only after the Centre has lifted the ban on inter-state travel.

On Thursday, Assam’s Covid count reached 203 by evening, making it the highest in the Northeast followed by Tripura at 173.

Sarma said, “To record the first 40 cases from 20, it took 27 days. Then it got reduced to 13 days to reach 80 from 40. It worsened further and took only six days to reach 157 from 80. The next calculation will be done when the numbers will reach 300.”

The health minister said the state has been dealing with “imported” Covid cases.

“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sarma as he observed that the state would see a sharp rise in numbers of Covid patients with the continuous inflow of stranded people in coming days.

He told reporters, “The state has started to record the spike in its Covid patient numbers after the Centre has allowed inter-state transport. So far, nearly 37,000 people have reached Assam and we have recorded 191 cases. The total number of people who want to return to Assam is around 12 lakh. Just imagine what will be the situation when all of them will return.”

On Thursday, the state government also released almost Rs 70 crore to pay the second instalment of financial support to three lakh people of the state, stranded outside, and requested them to stay wherever they are “if possible”.

The state government has been providing Rs 2,000 monthly to each of the stranded people who had registered themselves with the health department.

Sarma said, “It will be total chaos if everyone reaches Assam together as we don’t have so much infrastructure to quarantine them all at one time. So I request them to stay put for some time.”

He assured that the state government would also release another instalment in June.

Of the total returnees, 25,690 people have returned via roadways and 11,724 via railway so far.

Sarma said among the positive cases in the state, 36 cases were connected to Tablighi Jamaat of Delhi, 112 have travel history and 32 others were detected through contact tracing. In nine cases so far, including four each from Guwahati and Bongaigaon, along with one case in Kamrup district, the health department was yet to ascertain the source of the infection.

The state government has also prepared fresh standard operating procedures (SOPs) to quarantine those who would be reaching Assam from now onwards.

“Every returnee would now go through a seven-day institutional quarantining and then would be allowed to go for a home quarantine of the next seven days only if they were found healthy. The state will be expensing Rs 13,000 on each returnee during the 14-day quarantine period,” he added.

He added that the state government would ensure strict quarantining of all the returnees and state police were ordered to slap criminal charges upon those who jumped quarantine.

“Since from May 25, domestic flight services will be opened, the state is expecting more incoming people,” he said.

The health department has also reduced the quarantine period for a healthcare worker to seven days instead of the previous 14 days.

The state government has also decided not to mark a district a red zone unless it has 200 active cases. From now, only the area where an active case is detected will be declared as containment zone.

On Thursday, the Kamrup (metro) district administration has lifted its containment zone restrictions from the B. Barooah Cancer Institute’s staff colony, Regional Dental Hospital girls’ hostel, Amiyo Nagar areas. Gopal Nagar area of Noonmati was declared a containment zone after detection of a Covid patient in the area.