Covid curfew to be extended in Andhra Pradesh with increased relaxations

Taking note of the gradual decline in infections, Andhra Pradesh Chief Miniter, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, has decided to extend the lockdown after 20 June. The AP Chief Miniter informed that the Government would announce further relaxations and ease the curbs.

It may be recalled that Andhra Pradesh went into lockdown on 2 May and the extension of lockdown continued till 20 June. Observing that there has been a drastic decline in Covid-19 cases after the commencement of the lockdown, Mr Reddy decided to continue the lockdown as advised by the Ministry of Home and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to effectively tackle the pandemic.

Owing to the partial lockdown, the state witnessed a decrease in the cases. Cloer home, Vizag has been observing less than 300 every day. This latest development comes as a sigh of relief, as the caseload reached its peak in the district with an average of 2000 new cases reported daily in May. In fact, the recovery rate has also shown a good sign, with around 41 hospitals denotified against Covid treatment. The city traffic police have also put their efforts to make the citizens follow Covid norms, by imposing fines. Special drives are being held by the city police in major areas from 7 to 9 PM to educate the citizens.

However, keeping in view of the third wave pandemic which is likely to affect more children, the Government is in plans to extend the relaxation timings till 6 PM or more. Though the official announcement is yet to be announced by the Chief Minister, talks are to be announced about the new changes in a few days. A similar situation has been observed during the last year’s pandemic when the relaxation timings of the curfew were gradually extended.

On Thursday, Vizag reported 237 cases taking the total to 146167 positives. The total number of active cases till now is 4147 and the total recovered is 1,40,757.