India crosses 1 lakh COVID-19 positive cases, Maharashtra faces curfew

NEW DELHI: India became the second country in the world, after the United States, to report more than 100,000 positive cases of COVID-19 in a single day at any time during the pandemic. An official statement by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, said that 1,03,796 COVID-19 cases were recorded in India in the last 24 hours. This number has breached the peak of 99,181 COVID-19 positive cases in a single day during the first wave of the pandemic seen in September last year. The day’s spike in COVID-19 cases has now pushed India’s infection tally up to 12,589,067, as stated by the MoHFW’s dashboard as of 08:00 AM today morning.

According to MoHFW, 10 states – Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Haryana – have been categorised as “states of grave concern” owing to their high and rising daily COVID-19 cases and higher daily deaths. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday held a high-level review meet amid a worrying spike in COVID cases across the country. A government statement said that the sharp rise seen in cases in the nation could be mainly attributed to the severe decline in compliance of COVID-appropriate behavior, primarily including use of masks and maintaining ‘2 gaj ki doori’ (six-feet distance), pandemic fatigue and lack of effective implementation of containment measures at the field-level. After the meet, teams have been sent to Maharashtra, Punjab and Chhattisgarh because of the high number of fresh daily cases and the disproportionate number of deaths.

Maharashtra reported 57,074 fresh COVID-19 infections on Sunday, April 4, and the state government announced new restrictions on Sunday itself, shutting all non-essential shops, restricting restaurants to allow only takeaways, closing places of worship and asking all workplaces to work remotely from home as far as possible. The state currently has around 4,30,503 active cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection and according to the Centre, eight of the top 10 worst-affected districts in India are from Maharashtra. As part of the new rules, a night curfew would be in place across the state from 08:00 pm to 07:00 am and a weekend lockdown will be effective from 08:00 pm on Friday to 07:00 am on Monday. The restrictions come into effect from today, and include a ban on gatherings of five or more people throughout the day. Essential and medical services have been exempt from this.

Delhi also recorded a huge spike of 4000 fresh infections in a single day, taking the capital’s total COVID tally to 6,76,414 infections. This is the highest daily surge witnessed in Delhi this year.