Covid-19 cases in Assam tea gardens still a concern, 102 deaths reported among workers

If the cases do not come down in the next few days, we may declare complete lockdown in those districts, CM Sarma had said earlier

The spread of Coronavirus among tea garden workers in Assam continues to be a concern with 508 out of 800 big tea gardens already affected and 102 deaths reported so far.

Health department officials said the tea gardens are one of the priority areas for vaccination, given the fact that over 2,800 workers are still grappling with the virus and could possibly spread it further.

Tea garden workers, who constitute nearly 20 per cent of Assam's total population (3.20 crore) have seen 13,329 Covid-19 positive cases so far of which 10,410, however, recovered. "Since the tea garden workers live in congested colonies and it has been observed that Covid-19 safety protocols are not strictly maintained mainly due to poor knowledge and low literacy level. The Covid-19 situation in the gardens are still a concern for us," said a health department official.

The official said the Covid-19 cases have been spiralling in tea gardens since mid-May when positive persons were allowed to remain in home isolation. "Non-adherence of the protocols led to further spread of the virus. So the department immediately decided not to allow home isolation for the Covid-19 positive persons in tea gardens. They were shifted to hospitals or Covid Care Centres," he said.

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Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said a few districts having tea gardens continued to report more Covid-19 cases and were a cause for concern. "If the cases do not come down in the next few days, we may declare complete lockdown in those districts," he said.

A total of 1,03,104 persons in tea gardens have been provided the first dose of the vaccine while 6,027 have received the second dose so far.

The new SOP announced on Monday said the situation in Cachar, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sonitpur and Nagaon (having many tea gardens) was under constant watch and stricter measures are likely to be taken based on the situation.

Assam at present has 32,000 active Covid-19 cases and the state has been reporting over 3,000 new cases and 30 t0 40 deaths daily. The rate of positivity stood at 2.27 per cent on Sunday.