Lockdown in Maharashtra expected may extend by two weeks, all ministers in favour of the same

The ongoing lockdown in Maharashtra is all set to be extended by another fortnight

The ongoing lockdown in Maharashtra is all set to be extended by another fortnight. In the meeting on Wednesday, almost all of the state cabinet ministers demanded two weeks’ extension to the lockdown in the wake of the rise in Covid-19 cases in some of districts. The formal decision on the same is expected to be taken by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray in a day or two.

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After a partial lockdown from April 5, the state government imposed a complete shutdown from April 22. The state has allowed essential establishments to remain open between 7 and 11am, people to step out only for medical and valid reasons, restricted inter-district travel for valid reasons and brought down attendance in the government offices to 15% during the lockdown which ends at 7am on May 15. The lockdown has helped the administration to arrest the spike in Covid cases. The number of active patients came down to 546,129 on Wednesday from 699,858 on April 22.

The decision of the complete lockdown was taken by the state cabinet in the third week of April after the health department projected the active cases to rise to more than 1.1 million by May 1. The state cabinet on Wednesday pressed for the need to extend the ongoing lockdown for another two weeks. “The final decision over the extension will be taken by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray soon. The cabinet ministers are in the favour of an extension of two weeks,” said public health minister Rajesh Tope.

Tope said that though the cases in about 15 districts are on the decline the remaining districts have been witnessing the rise in the same. “We have improved on the positivity and growth rate of the cases. With 0.8% growth rate against 1.4% national rate, Maharashtra is in 30th position in the country. The positivity rate and other parameters related to the Covid-19 have improved in the state. Though we cannot claim to have the infection curve completely stabilised, the daily caseload is certainly on the decline,” he said.

According to the officials from the relief and rehabilitation department, there would not be any relaxation given from the current restriction during the extension of the lockdown. “There are a lot of sectors who have been demanding for the relaxation in train travel, office attendance, but the chief minister is firm on extending it in the existing form. The decision about imposing the complete lockdown for four weeks was taken by the cabinet last month. It was also decided to declare it in two phases. We expect the gradual unlocking to begin after May 30 or 31,” said the official.

The official pointed out that the lockdown has helped the state ease the pressure on the health infrastructure to a great extent.

“We have more than 25% beds vacant in the state, with some districts reaching 40%. We have eased the shortage of life-saving drugs like Remdesivir and oxygen through concentrated efforts over the last few weeks. But the vaccination drive is not attaining the desired speed, though we top in the number of people inoculated, amid the shortage of the vaccine. We expect the extension of the lockdown to help at the beginning of the flattening of the infection curve in the next fortnight,” he said.

Some of the districts like Buldhana, Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli have already imposed stricter curbs at a local level with permission from the chief secretary of the state. Some of these districts have completely shut down the establishments including essential ones and curtailed the intradistrict public transport as they have been witnessing a continuous rise in the cases.

Out of the total active patients, 44.22% or 247165 are in five districts (Pune, Nagpur, Mumbai, Thane and Nashik) while another 20.37% or 113845 are in five more districts (Ahmednagar, Solapur, Satara, Sangli and Chandrapur) as on May 11. 32.92% or 194486 patients out of 590818 active patients, as of May 11, are hospitalised.