Guwahati, January 7 (PTI): Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said the third wave of the pandemic along with Omicron variant of COVID-19 has hit the state from January 1 and now the government will treat all coronavirus cases as patients of the highly infectious new variant.
Addressing a press conference here, Sarma said that the doubling rate of cases is two days and on some occasions, it's even a single day.
"So, we assume that there are lots of Omicron cases in Assam at this moment. We have now decided to consider all positive cases as Omicron and will treat them accordingly," he said.
At least seven more people, including a foreign returnee, have tested positive for Omicron variant of coronavirus in Assam, taking the tally of the new strain to nine, an official said on Friday.
Sarma said that the number of cases in Assam started rising from December 27 and the third wave with Omicron as the dominant variant has hit the state from January 1, while it is estimated that the peak of the second wave (6,573 cases in a day) will be touched by January 20.
"By the end of January, we will reach the peak of the third wave. This will be much higher than the second wave's peak, say 10,000 or 12,000 or maybe even more. So, we've decided to ramp up our testing significantly to trace the contacts," he added.
Announcing new restrictions, the chief minister said that the night curfew timing has been advanced to 10 pm from 11:30 pm now and it will continue till 6 am, besides the wearing of masks made compulsory.
"All schools in Assam up to class 5 will be closed from tomorrow and this will be up to class 8 in Guwahati till January 30. The rest of the classes will take place on a rotational basis on every alternate day," he added.
Sarma also said that except for hospitals, only fully vaccinated people will be allowed in public places like hotels, restaurants, cinema halls, government offices, schools, colleges, buses and malls.
"We will be very strict on this. If we find any non-vaccinated or partially vaccinated people in any of these places, there will be a fine of Rs 25,000 on the owner of the establishment. It'll be a kind of curfew for the people who are not fully vaccinated.
"For the government employees, if they are not fully vaccinated by January 15, they will not be allowed to come to the office and their salaries will be deducted on a daily basis," he said.
People travelling in two-wheelers and four-wheelers have to be double-vaccinated, Sarma said.
The chief minister said that the government is giving thrust on vaccination more as "there is no strategy to control Omicron" and the best way is to minimise the impact of an infected person.
In case of marriage ceremonies and meetings, only 200 people or 50 per cent of the capacity of the venue, whichever is less, will be allowed, while up to 60 fully vaccinated people per hour for iconic religious places and 40 fully vaccinated persons per hour for other religious places are allowed.
For all the inbound travellers in airports and railway stations, COVID-19 testing will be mandatory if the person is not fully vaccinated and samples will be taken from children below 15 years also as the Omicron is infecting the younger generation significantly, the CM said.
"However, the double vaccinated people will have to do a test at their homes on the next day and inform us of the report if it is positive. Then on the seventh day, if there is no hospitalisation, we will consider them as negative even if they do not test again," Sarma said.
He said that the government this time is encouraging people to stay at home in isolation if the patents are not serious.
"If anyone wants to come to the hospital, it will be a fully paid service. Only the BPL and serious patients will be treated for free," Sarma added.
To a question, he said at present 8,760 general beds, 2,633 oxygen beds and around 2,000 ICU beds are available across the state.
"We are already working to create an additional 25,000 beds in the Covid Care Centres to handle the peak caseload," Sarma said.
For those home isolation, the government will provide them with a kit with all medicines free of cost and they will get tele-counselling by doctors regularly, he said.
Talking about the booster dose, Sarma said it will start from January 10 for frontline workers like healthcare and police personnel, and senior citizens who had taken their second dose nine months ago.
