Guwahati: The Kamakhya Colony area in Guwahati city's Pandu area has emerged as a COVID-19 hotspot in Assam after the detection of more than 50 cases with 24 hours. The fact that most of these cases do not have any travel history has added further to the atmosphere of doom and gloom in the area.
The local councilor told the media that more than 50 cases have been detected in the last 24 hours. He further expressed that all of these cases are "probably" the result of a "community transmission." Panic has gripped the locals residing in the area, who have are now fearful that they will be infected by the virus themselves. The number of cases in Pandu has continued to rise at a breakneck pace, even as Guwahati itself is in the midst of a virus outbreak.
Indeed, there has been talk of community transmission in the city ever since the health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma declared that several cases have been detected in the city, especially in the loading-unloading areas of trucks bringing goods from outside.
After the hullabaloo and the initial shocks had subsided, lockdown was clamped across the city from June 27 midnight onwards to arrest the spread of the virus. However, the cases have continued to soar. Sarma, at a press conference yesterday revealed that over 1,200 cases have been detected in the city within a single week. Sarma has said that with the lockdown and other measures that are being taken, the COVID-19 graph will probably show a downwards trend by July 10.
Meanwhile, two more deaths have been reported in the state, taking the number of COVID-19 related deaths in the state to 14. Meanwhile, India's coronavirus tally has crossed the six lakh-mark after more than 19,000 new infections and 434 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours. More than 3.5 lakh patients have recovered from the viral disease so far.