States in the Northeast received a pat on their backs for their "success" to stem the spread of COVID-19, compared to rest of the country.
The appreciation, however, have now left them worried due to shortage of testing laboratories, constraints in providing institutional quarantine and giving jobs to thousands, who head back home from their work stations in parts of the country, mostly South Indian states.
A Shramik Special train carrying nearly 1,200 people from Bengaluru reached Agartala in Tripura on Wednesday while another train reached Jiribam in Manipur. Another one from Delhi reached with over 800 people hailing from Assam and neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh. Over 3,000 others had already entered through the Assam-West Bengal check gates on Tuesday. Similarly, six buses from Delhi with 163 students and another with 24 cancer patients and their attendants from Chennai reached Guwahati on Wednesday.
The Shramik Special trains are carrying people mainly from Kozhikkode (Calicut), Kota, Jaipur, Nandurbar, Hisar, Surat, Vadodara, Bharuch, Ghatkesar, Ludhiana, Ambala, Aligarh, Rohtak, Kalyan, Bhiwani, Jalandhar and Bengaluru.
Assam government, which had earlier wanted to conduct sample tests of all coming from other COVID-19 affected states, however, gave up the plan and instead decided to carry out tests on those showing symptoms. "We will not be able to conduct a test of all but all must be in quarantine upto 14-days. The Centre also told us that tests are not required for those not showing any symptom. Even if we collect the samples of all and send them to Delhi or other places, the report will come after two months," Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters on Tuesday, making it clear that the existing testing facilities were inadequate.
The state at present has seven ICMR-accredited laboratories to conduct the test for COVID-19 and each laboratory can test 300 samples per day.
The decision for testing only those showing samples left many health officials worried as over 70% of the state's 65 COVID-19 positive persons have been found to be asymptomatic. "Off course, all such people will remain in home quarantine, but it is a bit risky as most of the COVID-19 positive persons have been found to be asymptomatic in Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura," one official told DH.
Tripura had declared itself as "COVID-19 free state" on April 29 after two persons, who had tested COVID-19 positive recovered and were discharged. But the shock was in store as 151 BSF personnel and their family members tested COVID-19 positive so far since May 2. Most of Meghalaya's 13 COVID-19 positive cases were also asymptomatic.
Assam has also decided to push for home quarantine for those not showing any symptom mainly due to constraint in capacity to provide institutional quarantine. "We wanted to quarantine such people in schools and colleges. But the lack of proper toilets in such institutions is a problem. Even the cleaning staffs are unwilling to clean the toilets used by those in quarantine," Sarma said.
Nagaland still does not have a laboratory to test COVID-19 while Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur has only one such facility each, leaving them with no other option but to depend on neighbouring Assam. In Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video-conference with the Chief Ministers on Monday, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu sought the PM's for support for procuring TrueNat machines to enable the state to carry out quick coronavirus test.
Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh reported two COVID-19 cases each while Mizoram reported one. All of them has been discharged after recovery.
These industrially-backwards states are also worried about giving jobs to such people locally after their quarantine as they are unlikely to go back to their work stations till a vaccine to fight COVID-19 is made available.