Guwahati: Eleven employees of the Assam Legislative Assembly have tested positive for COVID-19 on a single day, ahead of the scheduled commencement of a session from August 31, a senior official said on Friday.
The Assembly administration is testing all its employees with the help of the Health Department.
“We are conducting rapid antigen tests on all our employees. In three days till Thursday, 270 of our staff were tested, of which 11 tested positive for the infection on the previous day,” Assembly Principal Secretary Mrigendra Kumar Deka said.
The infected people were admitted to the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital and the COVID Care Centre set up at IIT-Guwahati, he said.
“We have around 350 staff and testing is on. The final count of employees testing positive for COVID-19 will be known by the end of the day,” Deka said.
When asked if the scheduled session will be cancelled or postponed, the official said they are waiting for the Health Department”s advice.
“We will work as per the instructions of the Health Department. Also, the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) will meet on August 18 to finalise the session and its activities. So, a final decision will be taken then,” Deka said.
Assam has so far registered 52,817 COVID-19 cases, including 17,313 in Guwahati alone.
A total of 37,224 people have recovered from the disease, while 126 have died of it.
The total number of active cases in the state stands at 15,464.
At least nine more COVID-19 patients, including three police personnel, have died, but the government”s Death Audit Board has not included them in the coronavirus death toll as they were suffering from other ailments too. PTI TR ACD ACD
