Weekend lockdown to be imposed in all urban areas of Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday announced that all urban areas of the state will be placed under lockdown this weekend to curb the surge in COVID-19.

Chouhan was quoted by sources as saying “In the wake of COVID-19 situation, there’ll be lockdown from 6pm on Friday to 6am on Monday in all urban areas of MP. For cities where cases have increased, appropriate action will be taken after meeting of crisis management group.” Chouhan said the government was making “containment areas in big cities”.

“In view of the pandemic, use face masks, maintain social distancing and sanitise hands frequently… Not getting infected with coronavirus is the biggest service towards the state today,” the official Twitter handle of the MP chief minister’s office said.

On Wednesday, the state government had announced night curfew would be enforced in all urban areas of Madhya Pradesh from 10pm to 6am.

In the past three weeks, the state government had imposed lockdowns in Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior on Sundays and extended the curbs to some other cities last Sunday.

Besides increasing the number of beds for the viral infection patients, the state government has also decided to set up one COVID-19 care centre in each district, Chouhan said. There are total 52 districts in MP. Private hospitals are also being roped in to increase number of beds for COVID-19 patients, Chouhan said.

On Wednesday, MP reported 4,043 new cases of coronavirus, taking its tally to 3,18,014, while 13 fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,086, as per official data.