Weekend curbs to stay in UP after positive response

LUCKNOW: Encouraged by a good public response to the weekend curbs for arresting the coronavirus spread, the Yogi government on Sunday announced that such curbs would continue in the state.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting presided over by CM Yogi Adityanath, who underlined the need for restricting social activities on Saturdays and Sundays while allowing economic activity to be carried out with all possible precautions throughout the week.

The government had imposed restrictions starting 10pm on July 10 till 5am on July 13. The announcement to continue with the weekend restrictions — from 10pm on Friday till 5am on Monday every week — came even as the number of active Corona positive cases touched 12,208 while the death toll in the state reached 934. Till Sunday, more than 12,000 people were kept in isolation wards of hospitals.
Additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Awasthi, said the weekend restrictions yielded significant results.
CM: Carry out economic activities with precaution
The CM stressed on restricting social activities while carrying out economic activities along with all possible precautions, he said. Therefore, the curbs would not apply on continuous industrial operating units and infrastructure development activities, including construction of expressways and other road projects, Awasthi clarified.
As announced by the government on Friday before the start of the first set of curbs, markets, malls, restaurants and commercial establishments will remain closed. However, essential services will continue to operate.
Essential services like hospitals will also be functional during the weekend. There will be no curbs on movement of Corona warriors and surveillance teams. Industrial activities, too, will also be largely permitted.
In rural areas, industrial units can function by following necessary protocols like social distancing and sanitization. Construction activity of major projects will also be allowed to function, including expressways, bridges, roads, big project of the PWD, government building and private projects.
Awasthi said that Covid help desks should be constituted in all industries and allied activities to keep a check on Corona pandemic. He said that the state government is also carrying out a hometo-home survey for which 1.2 lakh teams have already been constituted.
At the same time, he said, the state government has decided to increase testing of samples for Corona infections to 50,000 per day. On Saturday, more than 39,600 samples were across the state. Awasthi said the state government has set a target of conducting 30,000 tests through realtime reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test while the rest may be done through Trunat and antigen testing. He said 15 medical colleges in UP were conducting 1,000 tests each per day.
Awasthi added that the government has decided to accelerate the sanitization drive, expedite garbage disposal and conduct anti-larval treatment. A special drive, he said, is being conducted by the fire brigade department, which has deployed 850 vehicles for sanitization purpose across the state. He said that various departments, including urban development, industries and medical and health, have distributed pulse oximeters to check the rise in Corona cases.