UP & Delhi lockdown extended till May 17

UP and Delhi goverments have extended the ongoing lockdown till May 17. According to the additional chief secretary (ACS) Navneet Sehgal said that essential and emergency services will continue "as usual." medical services, medicine shops, vegetable shops, groceries, continuous process industries, e-commerce, and vaccination. These relaxations and curbs were in effect in the earlier phases as well. In addition to the curfew, a daily night curfew is also in force in all districts with more than 500 active coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, the UP government has decided to hire doctors retired from the armed forces, medical colleges and government medical services as the requirement of physicians to treat Covid-19 patients is increasing in hospitals across the state. A senior state government official said that third and fourth year MBBS students in 24 government and 33 private medical colleges in the state will also be pulled in for duty at Covid hospitals. The state government has also decided to set up liquid oxygen tanks and air separation plants in all government and private medical colleges to meet the shortage of the life-saving gas for treatment of Covid patients. Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday announced the extension of the ongoing lockdown in Delhi by another week and promised to tighten its enforcement while ordering complete suspension of metro rail services this week, citing the need to control the unprecedented surge of Covid-19 cases in the capital and scale up the health infrastructure proportionately. The current lockdown, which was earlier supposed to end at 5 am on Monday, May 10, has now been extended till 5 am May 17. Kejriwal said that saving lives was a bigger priority right now. If we survive, we can think of economic recovery in later stages.