M P announces night curfew in Bhopal & Indore

The Madhya Pradesh government on Tuesday announced the imposition of night cufewin Indore and Bhopal  from March 17, in the wake of rising fresh daily cases of the coronavirus disease in the central state, until further order. Markets in eight cities-Jabalpur, Gwalior, Ujjain, Ratlam, Burhanpur, Chhindwara, Betul, Khargone to shut at 10pm from March 17. There won’t be curfews in these cities,” said Madhya Pradesh government order, The night curfew will be in effect from 10pm-6am, the order said. Overall, 62,411 Covid cases have been detected in Indore so far, while the corresponding figure for Bhopal, the state capital, stands at 45,535. The two cities have also recorded 943 and 622 deaths thus far, respectively.

Last week, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had expressed concern at the rise in Covid cases in Madhya Pradesh, Speaking to reporters about the pandemic situation in the two cities, Chouhan had said that Bhopal and Indore would ‘most likely be put under night curfew.’ The chief minister had further said, “Look at the rise in infection cases…Tough measures will be taken to flatten the curve.” On Monday, 797 new coronavirus cases were detected in Madhya Pradesh, the state’s highest in a single-day in 2021, taking the infection tally to 269,391, while three related deaths took the death toll to 3,890. Of these, Indore and Bhopal accounted for 259 and 199 cases respectively.

Two states-Punjab and poll bound Tamil Nadu-have reported surge in Covid cases. Punjab  reported an alarming spike in fresh cases of Covid-19 triggering a second wave worry for the authorities as the active caseload skyrocketed on Tuesday to 11,942. Punjab is that the state has the highest Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for Covid-19 in the country. The current CFR in Punjab is 3.1 which is twice the national average of 1.4. The Punjab government has imposed night curfew in eight pandemic-hit districts — Ludhiana, Patiala, Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Jalandhar, Navanshahar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur. The night curfew would be in force from 11 pm to 5 am. The authorities have also limited indoor gatherings to 100 people and outdoor gathering to 200 people. The state school examination board has postponed Class X and XII exams by a month due to surge in Covid cases.

While the Amritsar district administration has made it mandatory to carry a Covid negative report to enter any venue, Ludhiana district administration has made vaccination compulsory for people involved in essential services.Bankers, journalists, judicial officers and employees of schools and food grain agencies besides the NGOs have been listed as the priority group. According to the Punjab Health Department officials, only half the department staff was immunised and the rest were avoiding vaccination due to various  reasons. Punjab has received 19.15 lakh doses of Covishield and 1.37 lakh doses of Covaxin, so far. Hospital staffers, who have refused to take vaccine, have been asked to get a mandatory RTPCR test done weekly before joining duty. Punjab Health Minister Balbiri Singh Sidhu said high CFR is entirely due to public negligence. So far, 6,100 people have lost their lives due to Covid.

With a surge in fresh Covid-19 cases of late, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Rajeev Ranjan on Tuesday instructed various government department officials to ensure that Covid-19 standard operating procedures were strictly implemented. At a review meeting, the chief secretary also instructed officials to fine those violating the guidelines. The Covid-19 virus positivity rate has increased to two per cent in places like Chennai and Coimbatore while in districts like Chengalpet, Thiruvallur, Tiruppur,Kancheepuram, Thanjavur and Nagapattinam it is over one per cent.