Even as the country seems to be breathing easy as far as the second wave of coronavirus is concerned, states are in no mood to take the virus lightly. The Centre has also entrusted the task to impose lockdown to the states. And several states, including Delhi and UP, have extended it further. Karnataka is the latest to follow suit. At the same time, Maharashtra aims to introduce relaxations if the situation improves.
After announcing a five-stage unlock plan on Thursday, the Maharashtra government clarified that the new rules to end the Covid restrictions that were imposed since mid-April are “still under consideration”. This time, no timeline has been specified for the new scheme.
On Thursday evening, Maharashtra’s Relief and Rehabilitation Minister Vijay Wadettiwar announced that it has been decided to unlock the state in five levels on the basis of Covid positivity rate and total oxygen beds. He explained further stating that Level 1 would mean that the lockdown can be removed completely and Level 5 is the red zone, which means complete lockdown. Soon after the minister’s announcements, a clarification from the Chief Minister’s Office revealed that no decision has been taken yet.
On 31 May, the BMC had issued guidelines for Mumbai saying that all essential shops would remain open from 7 am to 2 pm. The shops selling non-essential goods will open according to the day. The shops on the right will open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday while the shops on the left will open on Tuesday-Thursday. This sequence will change every week. The shops selling non-essential goods will remain closed on weekends—Saturday-Sunday. At present, the number of active cases of corona in the state is around two lakh 50 thousand.
The lockdown has been going on in Delhi for more than a month. During this time, all activities except essential services have come to a standstill. Construction-related works and factories have been allowed to function from 31 May, but businessmen are calling it insufficient. They hope that in the next meeting of DDMA, permission will be given to open the markets in Delhi. DDMA has allowed only industrial units to open and start construction work in the first phase of unlocking. Rest of the decision is likely to be taken next week. The lockdown is in force in Delhi till 7 June. Metro operations have not started yet.
In Uttar Pradesh, corona curfew has been lifted from 64 districts. As of Tuesday, with less than 600 active cases, three more districts have been freed from the curfew. However, corona curfew is currently in force in the state till 7 June and restrictions continue in some districts like Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad.
The lockdown has been extended once again in Karnataka where Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa said, “Lockdown has been extended in the state till June 14 to break the chain of Covid-19.”
In view of the increasing cases of coronavirus infections in Tamil Nadu, it has been decided to extend the lockdown till 7 June. This was announced by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin.