GUWAHATI: In the backdrop of community transmission being feared or having started in Guwahati, Assam health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, on 22nd June, announced that 33 COVID-19 screening centres will set up at the ward level.
“In the 12 screening centres that were set up for voluntary screening, 114 people have been found to be positive in the last two days. So we will be setting up screening centres in all the 31 wards of Guwahati as well as the two in GMCH and MMCH,” said the health minister.
Guwahatians could go for voluntary swab testing from the 24th of June to their respective ward centres; the list of centres and their locations will be provided soon.
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Apart from sample collection, a mini hospital will be set up within the next few days in all the ward centres. Every ward will be having a Rapid Response Team to deal with the positive cases. Further, ICMR approved instant testing machines would also be set up in these centres soon.
Moreover, the current quarantine facilities are to be converted to Covid Care Centres for the treatment of asymptomatic patients.
“The last Shramik train will arrive on the 24th June, and if we consider 7 days of facility quarantine, the crowd in the facilities will be over by the beginning of next month. So these can be converted to Covid hospitals. If around 150 to 200 people test positive on an average after we start ward-wise screening, then the present hospitals would not be enough. So the hospitals would be treating only symptomatic and serious patients,” said the health minister.
Earlier, G Plus has reported that ward-wise management committees would have proved better in dealing with the COVID situation in the city rather than the current constituency-wise policy. A few former councillors opined that the council would have tackled the situation better and managed at the situation at the grassroots level.
Himanta Biswa Sarma today expressed the government’s decision to curb the virus at a micro-level and working ‘at field level to manage’ the same.
