MANGALDAI, May 8 - Even though the overall number of quarantine cases in Darrang district have registered a gradual decline over the last few days, it may jump up at any moment with the arrival of people from other States in the days to come, observed senior health officials here.
Talking to this newspaper on Thursday, Dr Nirmal Kr Beria, spokesperson of the district Health department for COVID prevention said, �Till the report compiled last evening, altogether 4163 persons were kept under home isolation and among them 3429 have already completed the 28-day period without any symptoms. Another 39 have completed the first phase of quarantine period of 14 days leaving 734 in home isolation waiting for the completion of the quarantine period. However, this figure may jump up at any time with the entry of fresh returnees from other States.�
As per statistics of the district Health department on May 6 last, the district has recorded only 19 new cases of home isolation while the cumulative figure on that day stood at 734. This figure of home isolation has been decreasing with each passing day since May 3 last with the figures being recorded as 51, 23, 20 and 19 respectively in the last four days. Similarly, the figure of mass quarantine is stated to be even more satisfactory with only two persons being kept under mass quarantine. This figure has remained the same for the last three days.
�With ten persons being discharged from hospital on May 4 last, the figure of mass quarantine for the first time since the last one and half months has decreased to two from the overall total figure of 75, the figure remaining constant with no entry of any fresh case. However, the district is not likely to be completely free from mass quarantine cases as one of these cases is of recent inclusion following the Bongaigaon-Sarbhog connection and the other one is a mentally-ill lady from Bihar abandoned in the district by anti-social elements. Happily enough, so far both of them have tested negative�, said Sujata Gogoi, epidemiologist of the district IDSP who has been associated with the quarantine process since its beginning in the third week of March.
During this time, 63 persons of the district were suspected to have been exposed to coronavirus and subsequently 334 swab samples were sent for test till Wednesday. Among these samples, 322 have already tested negative and results of the remaining 12 are awaited till the filing of this report. Each of the ten persons related to Athgaon Kabarsthan incident were tested four times while each of the another 47 related to Nizamuddin Markaz were tested twice but all came out negative. There was a time just after the lockdown declaration when the district recorded nearly 350 new cases of home isolation and 39 samples were sent for the COVID-19 test.
