Twenty-three persons have died of COVID19 infection across Assam on Saturday while the state registered 2,132 new positive cases, taking the total tally to 1,40,471.

Confirming the detection of the new positive cases, Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in a tweet on Saturday night said the new cases have been detected out of 31,253 tests.

“Alert ~ 2132 #COVID cases detected today out of 31253 tests done in last 24 hours,” health minister Sarma tweeted.

The state’s positivity rate stands at 6.82%, Sarma said.

Of the new cases, Kamrup Metro has reported 562 cases, Dibrugarh 134, Jorhat 156 and Lakhimpur has reported 132 new cases.

A total of 1,08,329 patients have recovered from the disease in Assam so far.

Assam currently has 31,686 active cases.

On Saturday, 23 more positive patients succumbed to COVID19 infections, taking the state’s death toll to 453.

“Very sad & anguished to inform that 23 more COVID19 positive patients have succumbed to the disease,” health minister Sarma said in a tweet.

The deceased have been identified as Randhir Gowala (45) of Dibrugarh; Dhaneswar Saikia (69) of Sivasagar; Arjun Chandra Das (85) of Barpeta; Bimal Debnath (62) of Udalguri; Sarada Saud (55) of Goalpara; Sobina Begum (36) of Golaghat; Ramesh Prashad Budhia (68) of Jorhat and Arup Saikia (68) of Golaghat.

The other victims are Himangshu Sekhar Das (60) of Cachar; Tosheswar Sharma (78) of Sonitpur; Manto Mandal of Sonitpur; Kamali Basfore (65) of Sonitpur; Nakul Chandra Bora (57) of Golaghat; Abdul Rahman (45) of Karbi Anglong; Dipen Borpatragohain (39) of Lakhimpur and Arnalendu Chakravarty (71) of Udalguri.

Chandra Gogoi (62) of Sivasagar; Nawman Boro (78) of Kamrup Rural; Pradip Dutta (60) of Dibrugarh; Ashim Chatterjee (74) of RamruP Metro: Sakina Begum (7) of Nalbari; Aradhana Nahar Deka (60) of Kamrup Metro and Ananda Baruah (61) of Golaghat have also died of COVID19, the health minister confirmed.

“My condolences to all the families. We stand by you in this hour of grief,” Sarma said.