Guwahati: Assam finance and health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said that the emergence of Guwahati from the currently imposed lockdown will be in phases and the Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna will announce the directions for the unlock 1.0 in the upcoming few days.
"The Guwahati Unlock process will commence. However, everything will not be unlocked at once. Unlock 1 will first come into play and the Assam Chief Secretary will issue the new set of directives. Today, we will give our view on behalf of the health department", Sarma said.
This is indicative of the fact that the Assam Government seeks to implement an unlock mechanism similar to the one adopted by the Centre as it sought to resume activities after the months-long lockdown.
"In the rest of Assam, things are under control. However, things are a little dire in Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, and Golaghat. In these locations, the number of cases is a bit higher and is also rising steadily", Sarma further announced.
The health minister said that the health department has begun "aggressive treatment" of patients in the state – even those in the moderate phase of the disease.
At the same time, he appealed COVID-19 patients to become plasma donors as it could potentially lend more teeth to the Assam Government's fight against the viral disease. He said that this has become an absolute necessity as most of the COVID-19 cases detected in the month of July are "symptomatic" cases. Sarma also announced that the state Government will now allot an extra Rs. 100 towards buying fruits for diabetic COVID-19 patients as well as patients above 65 years of age.
Meanwhile, the situation in Guwahati remains to be grim despite the clamping of a stringent lockdown to arrest the disease spread. On 3 consecutive days, the city has registered more than 500 COVID-19 positive cases. To date, as many as 25 people in the city have succumbed to death due to the virus.
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