Amid an alarming spike in coronavirus cases in Maharashtra, the district administration in Yavatmal imposed a curfew which will be effective from 5 pm on February 27 to 9 am on March 1. However, essential services will continue, ANI reported, quoting Yavatmal District Collector M Devender Singh. The state government had earlier imposed a imposed a 10-day lockdown in Yavatmal on February 18.
State Social Welfare Minister Vijay Waddettiwar on Friday said that the government was not yet planning on a statewide lockdown, but additional measures will be undertaken to arrest the spread of virus, News18 reported.
“Reducing the services of local trains, restrictions on market places, reducing crowds in buses will need to be done,” Waddettiwar said. “Malls will need to be shut. We will need to keep an eye on marriage halls, crowding won’t be allowed there.”
On Thursday, Maharashtra reported 8,702 new infections and 56 more deaths. Apart from Yavatmal, restrictions have been put in place in several other districts of the state as well, according to the Hindustan Times.
The district administration in Latur has decided to implement a “janata curfew” on February 27 and 28, while night curfews have been imposed in Solapur, Aurangabad and Nashik. In Nagpur, schools, colleges and coaching classes will remain shut till March 7, while major markets will remain shut on weekends till then. Educational institutions have also been shut till March 31 in Jalna and till February 28 in Pune. In Amravati, a week-long lockdown was imposed on February 21.
On Friday, India registered 16,577 new coronavirus cases, taking the overall count to 1,10,63,491. The country’s toll rose to 1,56,825 as 120 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.
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