Covid-19: Several states extend lockdowns and curfews
Premium- Several states including Delhi and Maharashtra have chosen strict lockdowns to limit the spread of coronavirus
With adoption of rigorous movement curbs resulting in slight dip in fresh covid-19 cases in last week, several states are extending lockdowns and local curfews to supress the swelling burden of pandemic.
According to data available with the government, India on May 6th recorded 4,14,280 cases the highest ever number of covid-19 cases in India during the pandemic which went on decreasing to 4,06,902 on 7th May, 4,03,808 on 8th May and 3,66,455 cases on Sunday.
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1 min read . 10:51 PM ISTSeveral states including Delhi and Maharashtra have chosen strict lockdowns to limit the spread of coronavirus. The states have also claimed that the numbers are coming down after the curbs. “After 26th April, because a lockdown was imposed, the chain of the Coronavirus somewhat started to break. Starting 26th April, the cases began to decrease. Now, in the past 2-3 days, the positivity ratio has come down to 23% from the earlier 35%. Thus, the cases have started to come down in Delhi," Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said. The ongoing lockdown in Delhi has been extended for another week up to May 17 morning with halting metro services as well.
“We should certainly prepare for the third wave, for which we will have to further expand our infrastructure. Delhi witnessed a wave in November when 8,500 cases emerged, which we had successfully managed. With this wave, we touched a maximum of 28,000 cases, which brought our entire infrastructure under duress. However, the scale at which we are preparing our infrastructure, and the scale at which we are executing the same, even if 30,000 cases are to come up in the next wave, we are ready to deal with it," said Kejriwal. Delhi on Monday recorded around 13,000 cases while Maharashtra recorded around 37000 cases which touched over 50,000 cases last month.
Similarly, Maharashtra has witnessed a significant dip in new cases on Sunday after the state recorded 5,204 fewer cases in comparison with Saturday's numbers when 53,605 cases in the 24-hour period were reported.
Karnataka government has said that vehicles are prohibited to ply during 14-day lockdown in the state and the police has been given power to seize. Further, a two-week long Lockdown has been imposed in Rajasthan. The lock down will be effective till 24th May. There will be a ban on marriage ceremonies in the state till May 31. Only registered marriages attended by not more than 11 people will be allowed. Except for medical emergencies, no inter-district, intercity, city to villages or villages to city travel will be allowed during the lockdown. All places of worship will remain closed. MNREGA works have been postponed to prevent infection in rural areas, the state government said. After observing a decrease in infection rate to 17%, in Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal curfew has been extended till 17th May and in Indore too curfew is extended till 16th May.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 20 April appealed to states to use lockdowns only as a weapon of last resort to contain surging infections, indicating that the central government will avoid a repeat of last year’s sweeping shutdowns that caused lasting economic damage and millions of job losses.
“State Lockdown is beneficial to slow down the transmission of infection which occurs due to interaction of people. But it is not died down. Side by side we should strengthen our other strategies and resources to save lives," said Dr Jugal Kishore, professor and head, department of community medicine, Safdarjung Hospital.
According to the government data, ten States reported 73.91% of the new cases in last 24 hours. Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 48,401. It is followed by Karnataka with 47,930 while Kerala reported 35,801 new cases.
The lockdowns have however not impacted the deaths in the country. Over 3923 deaths were recorded on 6th May, 4233 on 7th May and at least 4092 and 3749 persons succumbed to covid-19 on 8th and May 9th.
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