Five including a research scholar positive in NIT Silchar; “We are waiting for RT-PCR,” Medical Officer

As the whole country saw a rapid rise in the count of COVID cases, the Omicron scare is gripping up the educational institutions in Assam also. Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati has reportedly detected as many as 40 COVID cases among the students coming from other states. Reports of suspected COVID cases are also coming from the National Institute of Technology Silchar campus.

It is known that a faculty member and his whole family have tested positive on Rapid Antigen Test. Also a Scholar of Mathematics department traveling from the outer state has tested positive in antigen test. However, Dr. Banibrata Chakraborty, the physician of NIT Silchar told Barak Bulletin that their RTPCR report is yet to come, and nothing can be said based on RAT as RTPCR is the gold slandered test for COVID.

Dr. Chakraborty informed that the Scholar of Math department was traveling from other state and he was tested with Rapid Antigen Kit and his result came positive, his sample was collected for RTPCR, now he is being quarantined in NIT campus, if his RTPCR comes positive, he would be sent to Silchar Medical College for further treatment.

On the other hand, NIT Silchar Administration has placed a new SOP for the residential students inside the campus. They not being allowed to leave the campus and all are directed to return to their room on or before 6 pm.

NIT Silchar was calling back all the final year students from masters and Ph.D. levels in a phased manner; they are yet to call back the new students. In December 2021, NIT issued a notice mandating the physical presence of all the Ph.D. scholars in the institute.

India reported 58,097 new Covid-19 cases and 534 deaths in the 24 hours ending 9 am Wednesday. With 15,389 recoveries, the active cases in the country stood at 2,14,004. A total of 2,135 cases of Omicron variant of coronavirus have been detected in the country so far.

Assam reported 475 cases of COVID on January 4, total of 36,781 tests were done and the test positivity rate is 1.29%, where most of the Cases were reported from the Kamrup metro area.