Curfew in UP extended till May 17 to further tame Covid

LUCKNOW: UP government on Sunday extended the partial curfew in the state till 7am of May 17, stretching the duration of the restriction for the third time since April 29 evening. This way the restriction will span over 15 days. Earlier, the government had extended the restrictions till May 6 and then till May 10.
The decision was taken in a high level meeting presided over by CM Yogi Adityanath on Sunday morning. Additional chief secretary, information, Navneet Sehgal said “partial curfew” has been extended to further arrest the spread of the pandemic. He said essential services, including vaccination, industrial activity and medical related services, will continue to operate.
Sehgal said the number of active cases has come down because of the curfew. The state health bulletin showed that the number of active cases came down from 2,45,736 on Saturday to 2,33,981 on Sunday. In fact, the active cases in UP have registered a decline of 77,000 since April 30.
The government also directed the closure of educational institutes till May 20. Even the online classes should not be organised during this period, the state government said in a statement.
On April 13, the Allahabad high court had directed the UP government to impose lockdown in districts with high caseload. On April 13, the Allahabad high court had directed the UP government to impose lockdown in districts with high caseload. The bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Ajit Kumar had noted that the night curfews were a very small step to check the Corona spread. The court had directed the government to ensure that there was no unnecessary public movement even during day timing. The HC had fixed the next date of hearing on April 19 but the government moved the Supreme Court which stayed the HC order. The government had maintained that it has already taken several steps to prevent the spread of infection.
The number of coronavirus cases had peaked to 3,80,55 on April 24, leaving the state government in a tailspin and forcing it to consider taking strict restrictive measures including extending partial corona curfew. The move helped the state government to bring down the number of Covid cases to 23,333 cases by Sunday.