Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Monday announced night curfew from 11 pm to 6 am in state’s municipal corporation areas from December 22 to January 5, news agency PTI reported quoting officials.
The Uddhav Thackeray government’s decision has come amid concerns over the new strain of coronavirus emerging in the United Kingdom which has forced several countries, including India, to temporarily suspend flights from that country.
The state government has also decided that fliers from Europe landing in Maharashtra will be sent to institutional quarantine for 14 days.
Maharashtra had emerged as the worst-affected state in the country by the coronavirus pandemic. Over 18 lakh cases and nearly 49,000 deaths have been reported in the state since the highly infectious disease was first reported in January this year. Mumbai once featured on top of the list of badly hit cities by COVID-19 in the India, however, things were brought under control after stringent lockdown was imposed and effective tracking of cases.
Meanwhile, the Centre has assured that the government is aware of the developments in the UK and that there is no reason to worry.
The government had done everything that was important to handle the COVID-19 situation in the last one year, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told reporters after a top level meeting in New Delhi on Monday.
Responding to a question on the panic over the new strain and a demand to ban flights from the UK, Vardhan told reporters, “I would say this to all that all these imaginary situations, imaginary talks, imaginary panic… don’t involve yourself in this.”
“The government is fully conscious about everything. If you ask me, there is no reason to panic the way we are seeing in this press conference,” the minister added.
