COVID-19 crisis: Maharashtra govt imposes night curfew in cities from December 22- Jan 5

In a big development on Monday, the Maharashtra government announced that a night curfew will be imposed in all cities from December 22 to January 5, 2021. This implies that the movement of people for non-essential purposes shall be prohibited from 11 pm to 6 am. This comes after Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray chaired a meeting to review the implementation of the preventive measures to halt the spread of COVID-19.

Moreover, flyers from European and West Asian countries arriving in the state shall have to undergo 14 days of institutional quarantine. Incidentally, Thackeray had ruled against imposing a night curfew in his address to the people of Maharashtra a day earlier. At the same time, he asked everyone to take all necessary precautions such as wearing a mask in public places to ensure protection from the novel coronavirus. Earlier, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had called for the imposition of a night curfew in Mumbai after encountering overcrowding in shopping malls and night clubs. 

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COVID-19 crisis in Maharashtra

On Sunday, December 20, Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally rose to 18,96,518 with 3,811 more persons testing positive for the novel coronavirus in the state. At present, there are 62,743 active cases in the state. With 2,064 COVID-19 patients discharged in the day, the number of recovered soared to 17,83,905. Mumbai continues to be a major novel coronavirus hotspot with 586 new cases recorded in the day. 98 deaths including 28 from Aurangabad, 16 from Mumbai and 7 from Pune were reported on Sunday.     

Until now, a total of 48,746 persons in the state have died owing to COVID-19. So far over 1.20 crore samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus in labs operational across the state. While 5,02,362 persons are under home quarantine, 3,730 others have been admitted to institutional quarantine centres. The COVID-19 recovery rate and fatality rate in Maharashtra stand at 94.06%, and 2.57% respectively. 

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