Telangana extends COVID-19 lockdown till April 30; to lift it in phases thereafter

Following Maharashtra and West Bengal, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhara Rao, on Saturday, announced that the Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown will be extended till April 30, after attending the PM-CM conference earlier in the day. He added that a strict will be implemented till April 30 and then will be lifted in stages after April 30. Currently, Telangana has reported 503 positive cases, with 14 fatalities.

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Telangana extends lockdown

Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray extends COVID-19 lockdown in state till April 30

He revealed that there were currently 393 active cases in Telangana and 96 people have been discharged till date. Moreover, there are 1654 people who are currently in quarantine. Telangana was one of the states which had seen a spike in the number of cases due to a large number of Nizamuddin Markaz attendees.

Addressing issues related to students, KCR said that all students from first class to ninth class have been automatically promoted, amid lockdown. He added that the decision on annual exams of SSC, some of which were postponed, to be taken soon. To curb the rise in COVID-19 cases, the CM announced a ban on all religious programmes and mass gatherings in state.

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Markaz & Telangana

Earlier on Friday, Telangana reported a total of 471 cases of which 388 were related to the Markaz event. When the Markaz issue came into light, Telangana reported six deaths - all who had attended the Markaz event. After initally failing to confirm the number of attendees, Telangana underwent a massive contact-tracing activity and found all Markaz attendees. The state health minister Eatala Rajendra claimed '85%  of Covid-19 cases reported in the State are linked to Nizamuddin Markaz'.

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States for lockdown

Apart from Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab and West Bengal have officially extended the lockdown and several other states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu are mulling to extend the lockdown atleast till end of April. Some other states like Chhatisgarh, Meghalaya, Kerala, which have not seen a rapid increase in cases, have preferred a selective lockdown, relaxing curfew in most parts and limiting lockdown to COVID-19 hotspots. Most states have also readied exit-plans in case the Centre does not announce a nationwide lockdown post-April 14.