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Chandigarh may impose weekend curfew to contain Covid-19 cases
In adjacent Mohali, inter-district movement over the weekend is allowed only with e-passes.
With the Covid-19 cases crossing the 400 mark in Chandigarh, the UT administration is mulling imposing weekend curfew in the city.
The curfew, on the lines of that imposed in Mohali, will be enforced if there is a drastic increase in cases or instances of people violating social distancing norms.
In Mohali, inter-district movement over the weekend is allowed only with e-passes, except for medical emergency, and all non-essential shops and services remain closed on Sunday. On Saturday, the curfew is till 5pm and after that movement is allowed only with e-passes.
Punjab governor and UT administrator VPS Badnore, in the daily review meeting on Wednesday, directed all officials to enhance vigil and ensure that people violating social distancing guidelines and other hygienic instructions should be penalised through a special drive conducted by dedicated teams.
Over the past few weeks, the city has seen a spike in cases coming from across the city rather than a few areas, as was the case earlier. Besides, nearly 50% of the recent cases comprise visitors to the city or their contacts.
Badnore also directed the deputy commissioner to ensure that all visitors from outside the tricity be monitored for detection of symptoms. “They should not be allowed to violate the quarantine stipulations,” he said.
The UT DGP was asked to ensure that vehicles carrying registration numbers from outstation and bringing visitors from outside were checked at the border points and their details were obtained for subsequent monitoring.
Badnore emphasised the importance of citizens voluntarily following the safety guidelines, issued by health experts from time to time. He stated that though the administration was doing whatever best possible under the circumstances, yet the primary responsibility of following guidelines remained with residents.
Pregnant women to be tested
The administrator also directed all hospitals to mandatorily test all pregnant women for Covid-19 on their admission.
