13 new Containment Zone areas declared in Guwahati. Here are the details

Guwahati: Due to the detection of fresh Covid--19 cases, 13 more areas in Guwahati city have been declared as containment zone to arrest the spread of the infectious disease on Friday. The Kamrup (Metro) Deputy Commissioner Biswajit Pegu has directed the circle officer to seal these areas with immediate effect. 

The newest Containment Zone areas are:

Dhirenpara-III

Barsapara-II

Kamakhya Gate

Dhirenpara-4 (Debagiri Road)

Kalyanpur, Ganeshguri

Jyotikuchi (near Jame Masjid)

Jyotikuchi Sankar Hotel

Anil Nagar

Fatasil

Colony Bazar

Borpothar, Basistha

Bongaon, Beltola

GMC Colony-II, Fatasil

It needs mention here that these orders have been made under the regulations "The Assam Covid-19 Regulations, 2020", "The Disaster Management Act-2005", "The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897", and other relevant laws of the nation. Any violation of this rule will now attract punishment under relevant sections of the law. With the declaration of these new areas as containment zone, the number of such areas has risen to 119.

Meanwhile, amid a sharp spike in the number of cases without travel history, at least 50,000 random tests under a targetted surveillance initiative are being carried out in Guwahati to ascertain the extent of the outbreak in the city. If enough cases are found to be positive, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the state's Health Minister, has forewarned that it could lead to another lockdown.

Talking to the media on Wednesday, Sarma said, "We'll take measures to check people violating lockdown. The situation was quite different when the nationwide lockdown was announced to break the corona chain. Our day-to-day activities are returning to normalcy with the beginning of the unlock 1.0. If we announce lockdown now, people will have to lose their sources of earnings. They'll be offended against the government.

"Under the targeted surveillance we've started from today – we're going to test 50,000 samples and review the outcome on June 30. The issue of fresh lockdown will be based only on the results of those 50,000 samples that are being collected from the vulnerable ones like the staffs of hotels that have been used as quarantine centres, ASTC bus drivers and handymen transporting people to the quarantines centres, people working in parking lots, godowns and nearby shops, petrol depots, dhabas, and police personnel engaged in COVID-19 duty among others."

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