July 28, 2020: As normalcy returns to Guwahati amidst serious community infection of Covid19, the health department has started rapid test at shop and offices in the city from Tuesday.

The health department staff will visit the shops, industries and government and private offices in the city and conduct rapid Antigen Test of their employees.

However, they will inform the concerned shops, industries and offices a day prior to their visit. For this, the department has increased the number of screening centres to 60 from the present 43.

The laboratory technicians will do testing at their respective screening centres from 9.30 AM to 12.30m PM daily and from 1.30 PM will visit shops, industries and offices. The teams will have to do at least 50 tests per day. The government has targetted to do 1,90,000 more tests to achieve its target of 3 lakh tests in the city.

However, health minister Himanta Biswa Sharma assured that if someone from a shop is tested positive, it will not be closed and other employees may open from next day.

For some relief to the government, the cases in Guwahati have come down to below 200 in the last two days. On Monday, the city recorded 155 cases while 171 cases reported on Sunday.

Sharma said that in order to bring the infection rate to 5%, more and more tests have to be done. The minister informed that by next week, the city will get 10,000 bed facility for Covid-19 patients.