GUWAHATI, May 17 - The total number of COVID-19 cases in Assam jumped to 100, with five persons in Guwahati, a student of Sivasagar who returned from Delhi, a nine-year-old child in Jorhat and another person in Silchar testing positive for the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours.
Barring two cases in the city, the others were those who had returned to the State from outside. A 28-year-old person from Cachar district, who arrived from Chennai yesterday, has tested COVID-19 positive. He is now under treatment at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital.
Among the three other persons testing positive in Guwahati, one returned from Bihar while the other two had come from Mumbai. The three were at the Sarusajai quarantine camp after their arrival.
The remaining positive cases in Guwahati � Rakesh Singh of Fatasil Ambari and Binod Rai who was quarantined at Kalapahar�s TB Hospital � are contacts of Mangru Sahani, the hotel worker of Fancy Bazar.
A nine-year-old boy from Ward No. 3 of Jorhat, and who came from Delhi, has also tested COVID-19 positive. He is now in the Jorhat Medical College and Hospital.
A 19-year-old asymptomatic student of Delhi University hailing from Sivasagar has also tested positive. He had returned with a group of around eight students from Delhi on May 14 in a vehicle arranged by themselves. All of them were quarantined at the Kaziranga University quarantine camp near Jorhat.
A 60-year-old person, who had returned in a truck from Kolkata, also tested positive at Tezpur late last night.
Four new areas in the city have been declared as containment zones. One such zone is in Fatasil Ambari and another at Datalpara.
Two other areas � one at Rukminigaon and the other at Katahbari � have been also declared as containment zones after a couple of students living there in rented accommodations tested positive after returning to Tripura on May 13. The areas are being sanitized and the line listing of the people done there for sample tests.
The total number of containment zones in the city now stands at 12.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma made a fresh appeal to the people to maintain the lockdown guidelines. �In view of the developing situation, I urge the elderly people and children to stay at home unless it is very important,� he said.
