Assam under 3rd wave from Jan 1; to treat all cases as Omicron: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

Guwahati: 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.