* DEATH TOLL 4,440
STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: A worrisome statistics! The death rate due to the COVID-19 in Assam is below one percent, but the death toll is 4,440 to date. The daily death toll in the State dwindles between 30 and 40 now. On Sunday, 37 people died of a viral infection in the State.
When the active COVID-19 positive cases were at their peak in the first wave of the pandemic, the highest single-day death toll in the State was 23. However, in the second wave, the highest single-day death toll in the State was 80 plus. Even as the COVID-19 positivity rate in the State dwindles around two per cent, 30-40 people die of the virus every day.
The first COVID-19 victim in the State was a 65-year-old man from Hailakandi who breathed his last at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital on April 10, 2020. Since then 4,440 people died of the virus, 1,347 of whom died of other diseases.
Health Department sources said that Since April 2020 the COVID death toll has been brought down from 80 plus. What worries them is that the decline in the death toll is not up to the mark. The sources, however, made it crystal clear that most of the people who died of the infection are ones who didn't take vaccines.
The second wane, the sources said, leaves little time for treatment if not taken care of at the right time. Taking that in view, the department did away with the home quarantine of patients above 50 years of age. Such measures paid results but not up to the mark, the sources said. The department is still trying its best to bring down the death toll.
Since April 2020 the COVID-19 positive cases in the State was 4.99 lakh, and 4.65 lakh of them recovered.