Alarming! Biggest single day spike of 159 positive cases in Cachar on Tuesday: Himanta

July 21: Cachar recorded the biggest single day spike of 159 positive cases on Tuesday. This was tweeted by State health Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday night. He wrote, “Alert ~ 1680 new #COVID19 patients detected in Assam on July 21. Guwahati reported 570 cases.( Jorhat 167, Cachar 159) With 18152 tests carried out in 24 hours, our positivity rate is 9.2%.”

On Tuesday night, at around 11.45 PM, District Media Expert Suman Choudhury informed that a total of 122 positive cases were detected in Assam on Tuesday. However, later in the night, while giving the daily updates, State Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in a tweet wrote that 1680 positive cases were recorded in Assam on Tuesday. Guwahati registered the highest number of 570 positive cases followed by 167 cases in Jorhat and 159 positive cases in Cachar. As per this data, Cachar occupied the 3rd place in terms of spike in COVID cases.

This is no doubt alarming for the people of Cachar district. However, more than that is the confusion which arises with the COVID data. As per the data provided by the District Media Expert on Tuesday night, the following figures were mentioned:

• First Slot: 11 positive cases
• Second Slot: 10 positive cases
• Third Slot: 25 positive cases
• Rapid Antigen Test: 76 positive cases
• GRAND TOTAL OF TUESDAY: 122 positive cases (Total 874 cases in the district as of now).

However, after the tweet of Himanta Biswa Sarma, it became evident that there were another 37 positive cases registered in Cachar on Tuesday. That means, there should have been more list(s) apart from the 3 slots & 1 Rapid slot as stated above. As per a source, Cachar district officially recorded 715 total cases on 20 July. So to reach 874 total number of positive cases in the district on Tuesday (as stated by District Media Expert), another 159 more cases are required. This was exactly what was mentioned by the Health Minister in his tweet, when he wrote that there were 159 positive cases in Cachar on Tuesday.