Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has announced the replacement of curfew with a lockdown till May 31 in the state in view of the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Singh also hinted at the resumption of limited public transport and maximum possible relaxations in non-containment zones from May 18, a notification released by Punjab Chief Minister's Office read.
Singh said that the containment zones would be strictly sealed to enable resumption of shops and small businesses in the non-containment areas, adding that details of all relaxations would be announced by Monday once Centre's new guidelines are released. He, however, made it clear that educational institutes would continue to remain closed in the interest of the safety and security of the children.
The chief minister, in his suggestions to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, has also recommended that the nationwide lockdown, in a relaxed form, should also be extended to May 31. In his suggestions, Singh favored a simple containment/non-containment zone categorization instead of the Green/Orange/Red Zone classification. He said that the district as a whole is a single zone or at the most, there are 2 units, i.e, municipal corporation area and non-municipal corporation areas.
In a live FB interaction, the chief minister said the daily number of new cases in the state had come down during the last 4 days or so, after the recent upsurge due to the arrival of pilgrims from Nanded, students from Kota, etc. He thanked the people for their cooperation, enabling the state to control the COVID-19 cases, whose doubling rate was now 44 days, as against several other states, such as Maharashtra’s 11 days.
Meanwhile, the country is awaiting Centre's guidelines on the future roadmap as the third phase of lockdown ends on May 17. It is highly likely that the government will announce details on the next phase of lockdown tomorrow.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to the nation, said that the next phase of lockdown will be "totally different" from the previous phases, and the contours will be decided on the basis of suggestions received from state governments.
There may be more relaxations but people will have to continue taking precautions, including wearing masks and social distancing, the prime minister had said.
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