Coronavirus pandemic: Centre mulls extending lockdown as COVID-19 cases in country cross 5,000 mark  

A policeman aims to hit a man with his baton for venturing out of his home during the lockdown. 

New Delhi: The Centre is contemplating to extend the three-week countrywide lockdown, which was imposed for 21 days initially from midnight of March 25. This comes after several states, such as Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Telangana requested the Narendra Modi let central government to continue with all or most the restrictions imposed during this period.

The lockdown is slated to be lifted on April 14.

On Tuesday, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, in an op-ed on World Health Day, which was published by an English daily owned by the Daily Thanthi Group, wrote: “Between the considerations of the health of the people and stabilization of our economy being debated, the former shall take precedence over the later. The concerns of economy can wait for another day, that of health cannot. … The next one week of lockdown is very critical for evolving an exit strategy since the data regarding the spread of virus and its rate during the next week will have a bearing on the decision to be taken.”

This is seen as an indication of the mood of the Centre at present. According to analysts, the Centre may be inclined to lift the restrictions in a staggered manner – phase by phase. The curbs on mass movement of people is likely to continue for another few weeks. This will mean there would be no train operations, flights or buses running in the country for several more days after April 14.

Meanwhile, the cases of coronavirus-infected people have crossed the 5,000 mark in India. At the time of publishing this story, the COVID-19 stats in the country are as follows:

• Cases: 5,311
• Deaths: 150
• Recovered: 421
• Active: 4,740

The latest number of coronavirus stats worldwide are as follows:

• Cases: 1,426,096
• Deaths: 81,865
• Recovered: 300,054

[Source: Johns Hopkins University & Medicine]

Related