E-Paper
UP may continue lockdown after April 14
Ghaziabad
Ghaziabad
Uttar Pradesh may not call off the 21-day lockdown on April 14 as a senior official in the state home department on Monday said that restrictions cannot be lifted till Sars-Cov-2 virus is wiped out from the state. Senior government officials said that the increasing number of positive Covid-19 cases remained a worrying factor.
The UP’s additional chief secretary (home), Awanish Awasthi, said that before ending the lockdown they will have to ensure that there is “not a single Covid-19 positive case present” in the state.
According to officials, the total number of Covid-19 cases in the state stood at 305 till Monday evening, which include 159 cases related to the last month’s Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Delhi’s Nizamuddin.
“On Monday, there has been addition of 27 cases and 21 of them are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event. Out of total 305 positive cases, 159 are linked to Jamaat. There have been reports which are optimistic about ending the lockdown in UP after April 14. But, the sensitivity in the state has increased during the past four-five days as the number of Covid-19 cases linked to Jamaat has surfaced. So, it is premature to say whether the lockdown will end or not,” Awasthi said during a press briefing in Lucknow.
Initially, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had announced a lockdown of 16 districts, including Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar, in the state on March 22. Thereafter, in his address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the night of March 24 announced a countrywide lockdown for 21 days to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. The 21-day lockdown will end on April 14.
Awasthi further said,“So it cannot be said that lockdown will end after April 14 or not. Our teams of health, police and government officers are putting in a lot of efforts and they will have to work for a longer period. People’s participation is also required now.”
The officials said that they are also trying to trace those who came in contact with the 159 positive cases linked to Tablighi Jamaat meet.
“We are also scanning and searching for a third category of people who came in contact with the second category. At present, we can say that there is no community spread as cases and contacts are identified, and before ending lockdown we will have to ensure that there is no single positive case pending in the state,” Awasthi added.
According to the officials, about 1,600 people linked to Tablighi Jamaat event were identified and nearly 1,200 of them were sent to quarantine facilities. They added that 159 positive cases linked to Jamaat were reported in Agra (29 cases), Lucknow (12), Ghaziabad (14), Meerut and Shamli (13 each), Hapur (3) and Saharanpur (13 cases), among other districts.
Besides, 315 foreigners were also identified till Sunday and 249 passports have been seized so far and 42 FIRs filed against them, the officials said.
Six people from Nepal were traced by the police in Ghaziabad on April 1 while 10 Indonesian nationals were traced and taken to a quarantine facility after they were hiding in a madarsa in Sahibabad on April 4. In Ghaziabad, there are a total of 23 Covid-19 cases and 14 of them are linked to people who attended different religious congregations.
