Maharashtra extends lockdown till 30 April; Uddhav Thackeray says restrictions will be lifted as soon as chain of transmission breaks

-

With continuous spike in COVID-19 cases, the Maharashtra government on Saturday decided to extend the ongoing lockdown period till 30 April, hours after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray attended a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conferencing from Mumbai.

In a live webcast, Thackeray said the lockdown, which was supposed to end on 14 April, will be extended till 30 April in view of the lack of any other options.

File image of Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray. ANI

Explaining the broad contours of the plan, Thackeray said while restrictions would be eased in certain areas in the state during the extended period, they will become stricter in others.

The chief minister said he had conveyed this decision to the prime minister during the meeting of all the chief ministers.

Before Maharashtra, Odisha and Punjab had formally extended the lockdown period till 30 April. Thackeray said the decision regarding pending examinations, restarting of industrial units and the migrant workers stranded in the state will be announced before 14 April.

He further said that the complete lifting of the lockdown will depend upon how soon the chain of the coronavirus transmission is broken in the most-affected state. Maharashtra's tally of COVID-19 cases shot up to 1666 earlier in the day with 92 fresh cases being reported, according to state Health department.

The state has so far reported 110 deaths due to the infection while as many as 188 patients have been discharged
from hospitals after recovery, officials have said. "Maharashtra has always shown the path to the country. In the present crisis too, the state will lead in defeating the coronavirus, which has attacked all and not spared even
the PM of the UK," the chief minister said.

Thackeray also asked people not to panic and called for a "continuous the determined" fight against the virus. The chief minister said the state had so far tested more than 33,000 samples, out of which nearly 19,000 were from Mumbai, which he said is the "Gateway to India". Talking about the cases in Mumbai, which has been hit the hardest by the outbreak, Thackeray said, "60 to 70 percent of the nearly 1000 coronavirus positive persons in Mumbai have displayed mild or very mild symptoms".

"Those who had unfortunately died had other ailments as well, and most of them had come to hospitals during the last stage (of their illness)," he said.

According to the Mumbai civic body, the tally of COVID-19 cases in the country's financial capital mounted to 993 with 64 deaths, as on Friday. Appealing to people to work from home wherever possible, the CM acknowledged that there is uncertainty and anxiety all around due to the lockdown.

"The number of coronavirus positive patients is increasing...Everyone is at home and we don't know what to do," he said. Meanwhile, the CM admitted that some persons who had returned from foreign countries not listed by the Central government for coronavirus check in initial days, were not tested at the international airport.

In an apparent reference to the ongoing political controversy over DHFL promoters Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, who are accused in at least to cases of fraud, and their family members being allowed to travelduring the lockdown period in the state,Thackeray said politics can wait. "We have the whole life ahead to do politics," he said.

AS the controversy raged on, the state government on Friday sent senior IPS officer Amitabh Gupta on compulsory leave and initiated a probe against him for allegedly helping the Wadhawan brothers and 21 others to travel to a hill station amid lockdown.



from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/2XuTwyu
Press Trust of India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Both COVID-19 vaccine doses needed for good protection against B16172 variant

-
It’s been a concerning few weeks in the UK, with the B16172 variant first taking hold and then spreading to become dominant. This more infectious form of the virus, initially identified in India, is what we’re now going to have to live with – unless it is out-competed by another variant in the future. Worryingly, experts had predicted that B16172 might be able to escape some of the effects of vaccines, which if true would threaten to derail the UK’s plans to finish lifting restrictions from the end of June. However, Public Health England (PHE) has looked at the ability of various variants to evade immunity and says that the UK’s vaccines remain effective against the variants circulating, including B16172. On the surface, this looks like good news. But delve a bit deeper, and things get more complicated, says Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. PHE’s research found a little drop-off in protection against B16172 among people who were fully vaccinated.
Read more

New coronavirus variant emerge in India: How should our COVID response change?

-
Image
After genome sequencing of over 10,000 COVID-19 cases in India, researchers have discovered a new variant with two new mutations which may be better at evading the immune system. In 15-20 percent of samples from the Indian state of Maharashtra (the state accounting for 62 percent of cases in the country) a new, double mutation in key areas of the virus has been detected. These are now known as the E484Q and L452R mutations. What makes the variant different? Both these mutations are concerning because they are located in a key portion of the virus – the spike protein – that it uses to penetrate human cells. Spike proteins attach via a “receptor binding domain”, meaning the virus can attach to receptors in our cells. These new mutations include changes to the spike protein that make it a “better fit” for human cells. This means the virus can gain entry more easily and multiply faster. Given what we have seen with other similar mutations , it might also make it harder for our immu
Read more

Aditya L1 Mission: Spacecraft is nearing its final phase, says ISRO chief

-
Aditya L1 spacecraft is nearing its final phase, and manoeuvres to enter the L1 point are expected to be completed by January 7, 2024, according to ISRO Chairman S Somanath. “Aditya is on the way. I think it has reached almost its final phase,” the ISRO chief told PTI on the sidelines of an event organised at VSSC to commemorate the 60th year of the First Sounding Rocket Launch. Aditya L1, India’s first space-based mission to study the Sun, was successfully launched on September 2 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. The spacecraft, after travelling about 1.5 million km from Earth over 125 days, is expected to be placed in a Halo orbit around the Lagrangian point L1, considered closest to the Sun. He said that the last preparations for the spacecraft’s entry into the L1 point are currently underway incrementally.”Possibly by January 7th, the final manoeuvres will be done for entering into the L1 point,” Somanath added. Among other tasks, it will capture and tr
Read more