47 new COVID-19 cases in Assam, total rises to 595

As many as 47 new COVID-19 cases have been detected in Assam on Tuesday, taking the total to 595, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

Golaghat has reported 21 cases followed by eight in

Morigaon, five from Nagaon, four from Lakhimpur, three from Goalpara, two from Karbi Anglong, one from Hojai.

While one person was detected positive in Mahendra Mohan Choudhury Hospital (MMCH), two people tested positive for the virus in GMCH.

"47 new cases of #COVID19+ reported. 21 Golaghat, 4 Lakhimpur, 8 Morigaon, Goalpara 3, Hojai 1, MMCH 1, Karbi Anglong 2, Nagaon 5, GMCH 2," the minister tweeted.

Of the total 595 cases, 526 are active cases, 62 have

recovered, three have migrated to other states and four have died.

Assam has recorded a spike of more than 500 cases since May four after road travel restrictions were lifted.

Sarma said the new COVID-19 patients are mostly those who have returned to the state from other states.

The minister said that all those coming from outside will have to undergo seven days of institutional quarantine till their results are negative.

"It is clarified that all swabs are collected from

people soon after they arrive from outstation. Subsequently they are transferred to the quarantine centres. Therefore, most of the positive cases in Assam are imported and not home-grown!" he said in a tweet on Monday.

In order to screen all the people coming from outside the state by road and rail network, the government has set up five Zonal Screening Camps at Kokrajhar, Guwahati, Tezpur, Jorhat and Silchar.

Assam has so far tested 70,029 samples for COVID-19 in seven laboratories of the state and out of these, 595 have tested positive, 62,244 are negative and the remaining results are awaited.

Meanwhile, four repatriation flights are expected to

land in Guwahati between May 27 and June five, Chief Secretary, Kumar Sanjay Krishna, said.

The flights scheduled to arrive next week are from

Ukraine, Moscow, the Philippines and Kuwait, he said.