A 40-year-old Buddhist monk in Arunachal Pradesh and an eight-month-old infant in Meghalaya died on July 6, taking the COVID-19 death tally in the Northeast to 20.
Assam leads the table with 15 deaths.
Arunachal Pradesh’s Health Secretary P. Parthiban said the monk, from West Kameng district, was undergoing treatment at the Tawang district hospital after returning from Delhi last month. He had renal complications.
Meghalaya Health Minister Alexander L. Hek said the infant died hours after being admitted to the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences on July 6.
Cooperation sought
Assam Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday sought more cooperation from residents of Guwahati in view of the “consistently high” number of positive cases.
Till July 6, the State recorded 12,522 cases with 4,623 of them active.
Almost 22% of these (2,723) were detected since July 4 and Guwahati accounted for 1,927 of them.
Among the 598 who tested positive in Guwahati on July 6 were 30 employees in two buildings of State Bank of India’s head office for the northeast.
Kamrup (Metropolitan) Deputy Commissioner Biswajit Pegu said the offices were declared as containment zones and sealed.
SBI officials said 86 of their employees have so far tested positive across its branches and complexes in the city.
The Catholic hospital in eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh town was also sealed after 12 nuns, a doctor and a domestic help tested positive for COVID-19 on July 4.
