COVID-19: Punjab imposes night curfew from 9 pm to 5 am till April 30

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In view of rising COVID-19 cases, the Punjab government on April 7 imposed a night curfew across the state. The curfew will remain in place from 9 pm to 5 am till April 30.

The state government has also banned political gatherings in the state.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said those violating the ban on political gatherings, including leaders, will be booked under the Disaster Management Act and the Epidemics Diseases Act.

As part of the fresh curbs, the number of people who can attend funerals and weddings has been reduced to 50 people indoors and 100 for outdoors.
Wearing masks has been made mandatory for all government employees while in office, an official statement said.

These restrictions, coupled with the ones imposed earlier, which include closure of schools and educational institutions, shall remain effective till April 30.

However, there was some respite for shop owners in malls, as the chief minister allowed entry of 10 people per shop at any given time, as against the earlier order of not allowing more than 100 people in the entire mall at one time.

This would imply that 200 people will be allowed in a mall with 20 shops at any given time, said the statement.

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The Centre had on April 6 flagged Maharashtra, Punjab and Chhattisgarh as a cause of "maximum concern" due to the high number of COVID-19 cases being reported daily.

At a press conference, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that the situation in Punjab and Chhattisgarh is worrying because of their share in the number of deaths.

"If we look at Punjab, 3 percent of the total cases are being reported from Punjab now and it accounts for 4.5 per cent of the total fatalities in the country," he said.

The daily cases in Punjab have increased from 240 between February 10 and 16 to 2793 between March 31 and April 6. The average daily deaths during the same periods have also increased from eight to 58.

The state on April 6 reported 62 fatalities and over 2,900 new cases. The active cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) rose to 25,913 and 2,350 patients recuperated, taking the number of recoveries to 2.24 lakh, according to a bulletin.

The 62 new fatalities took the toll to 7,216, while the infection tally rose to 2,57,057 with 2,924 cases, the bulletin said.

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