Assam's COVID-19 positivity rate falls to 3.86%

Guwahati: Amid the Assam Government's push to ramp up testings across the state in its bid to contain the COVID-19, the virus' positivity rate has fallen below 5%. This is ideal, considering the massive spike in the number of cases across the country.

On Wednesday, the positivity rate of the virus stood at 3.86% -- a sharp decline from July when it was hovering near the 7% mark. In contrast, the national average COVID-19 positivity rate is still over 8%.

Yesterday, 2,284 COVID-19 cases were detected out of 59,162 tests. While at first glance, the number might seem to be on the higher side, one also has to take the mammoth number of tests into consideration.

Although Kamrup (Metro) reported the highest number of infections, the districts of Dibrugarh, Nagaon, and Kamrup (Rural) also reported more than a hundred cases each.

With the onset of August, the Assam health department has undertaken massive testing drives not just in Guwahati, but across Assam. On August 4, the Government began its most ambitious initiative to conduct more than 50,000 tests; since then, things have more or less continued in the same vein.

However, 6 more lives in the state were lost to the virus infection on Wednesday. "Sad to share the demise of 6 #COVID patients~ Late Ramesh Chandra Medhi (81) of Kamrup (M), Late Ram Kumar Mahato (58) & Late Tarini Charan Kalita (60) of Dibrugarh, Late Badal Debnath (56) of Tinsukia, Late Kanu Paul (56) of Cachar and Late Lalbhanu Khatoon (35) of Darrang", Sarma tweeted, informing about the deaths.

At the same time, 1,471 patients also recovered from the respiratory infection on Wednesday, which is indeed a reassuring sign.

"So many recovered patients in a day is indeed a result of great efforts by our medical teams", said Sarma.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that every country and region should conduct 140 tests a day per million population and this level of testing should continue till the time the region attains a COVID-19 positivity rate of less than 10 percent and ultimately a rate of less than 5 percent.

Also Watch: NewsMakers: Bharat Bhushan Dev Choudhury, Sec. General Administration, Gov. of Assam, Dispur