The Punjab government on Wednesday imposed night curfew between 9 pm and 5 am till April 30 amid a rise in coronavirus cases, reported ANI. The state has also banned political gatherings.
Punjab, along with Maharashtra, Delhi and Chhattisgarh, is one of the biggest contributors to the surge in infections as India grapples with the second wave of the pandemic. On Tuesday, the Union health minister said that 80% of cases in Punjab have the UK variant of the virus. He suggested that the reasons behind the surge in fresh infections could be marriages, local body elections and farmers’ protests.
This came a day after the Delhi government issued similar curbs. Maharashtra also imposed similar restrictions and weekend lockdowns from April 5 to April 30. However, a report said that days before the Uddhav Thackeray government decided to impose the restrictions, the Centre had told the state that such measures have limited impact on containing transmission of the infection.
India on Wednesday recorded 1,15,736 cases of coronavirus cases, the most infections reported in the world in a single day since the pandemic began, data from the health ministry showed. The country’s overall count rose to 1,28,01,785, or over 1.28 crore. The toll went up to 1,66,177, with 630 more fatalities reported. The active caseload stood at 8,43,473.
Wednesday’s single-day rise numbers topped that of Monday, when the country reported 1,03,558 cases in the first instance of the figure going past one lakh. On Tuesday, the tally went up by 96,982.
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