Covid: 13 cops among 252 dead in Assam; 2 million tests

Guwahati, Aug 25 (IANS) Thirteen police personnel were among 252 people who succumbed to Covid-19 in Assam even as the authorities have so far conducted over two million tests, officials said on Tuesday.

According to the Assam Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Gyanendra Pratap Singh, 3,394 police personnel in the state have tested positive for Covid-19 while 2,863 have already recovered. “Unfortunately, we’ve lost 13 colleagues,” said Singh, a senior IPS officer, in a tweet.

Senior police officials infected by the deadly virus include Director General of Police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, Inspector General of Police (Law and Order), Deputy Inspector General (Administration), three Superintendents of Police of Dhubri, Tinsukia and Kokrajhar districts and Additional Superintendent of Police of Tinsukia.

The police chief and most other senior police officials, however, recovered from the disease. National Health Mission (NHM) officials in Assam said that so far 92,619 people tested positive for the virus and 252 among them died. Of the total 92,619 positive cases, 19,274 are active cases, 73,090 have recovered and three migrated out of the state.

NHM officials said that the number of recovered patients in Assam is more than 3.8 times the number of active patients. “Over 2,000,909 samples were tested in 17 laboratories till Monday night. Assam so far conducted 58,347 tests per million,” they added.

Meanwhile, with the rising coronavirus cases, lockdown restrictions would be re-imposed in Barak Valley region in southern Assam comprising three districts – Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj – from August 27 to September 4 to tame the spread of COVID-19. The Barak Valley region, the gateway to Tripura, Mizoram and western Manipur, would also remain in lockdown on September 5 and 6, as the entire Assam observes a weekend (Saturday and Sunday) lockdown.

Emergency services, government offices, public construction work, agriculture and allied works will be out of the purview of the orders, separately issued by the District Magistrates of Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts.

–IANS

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