Assam Crosses 8-Lakh Coronavirus Tests

Assam on Tuesday crossed the eight lakh mark in conducting COVID tests.

With a total of 8,02,674 tests, Assam has maintained over 23,000 tests per million, which is fourth in the country after Delhi (48,363), Andhra Pradesh (33,500) and Tamil Nadu (31,900).

Assam has also started testing shopkeepers and officegoers in Guwahati, where the first phase of unlock has been initiated recently after putting into lockdown since June 29. The relaxations were promulgated from July 19.

Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier said, that shopkeepers and officegoers in both government departments and private organisations, will have to test themselves before resuming their duties.

"Most people have already tested themselves in the COVID screening centres while the dedicated establishments to establishment tests were conducted on Tuesday," a source in the health department said.

The state health department has launched 60 new screening centres across Guwahati taking the total to 103, each testing over 50 persons per day. About 150 lab technicians were recruited to man these centres that conducts Rapid Antigen tests and collects samples for RT-PCR tests.

Assam also has a total of 19 RT-PCR test labs and the state conducts an average of about 13,639 tests in July.

The state has jumped a lakh new tests in seven days from over seven lakh tests on July 22 to 8,02,674 tests in six days. It has been maintaining an average of six-seven days over the last three instances.

Assam, that had been sending bulk of its test samples to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, initially conducted its first test on February 7, about a month before reporting the first COVID case in March 31. It completed the first one lakh test on May 30, 114 days after.

Meanwhile, Assam's COVID death count has gone up to 88. 

The state has 33,576 COVID-19 positive cases with 8,085 active ones, at the time of filing this report. 25,402 patients have been discharged till now.