Punjab imposes night curfew from 10 pm-5 am starting December 1, doubles fine for violating Covid-19 norms

Punjab on Wednesday became the latest state to announce fresh restrictions, including night curfew and doubling of fine for not wearing masks or following social distancing norms, amid rising cases in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) and apprehensions of a second wave.

Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh ordered night curfew in all towns and cities of Punjab from 10pm to 5am from December 1.

The chief minister has doubled the fine for violating Covid-19 protocols to Rs 1,000 which would also be applicable from December 1. Apart from this, all hotels restaurants and wedding venues would close at 9.30 pm. The following curbs will be reviewed on December 15.

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Punjab has so far logged 147,665 Covid-19 cases which include 6,834 active cases, over 136,000 recoveries and 4,653 deaths. As many as 614 people were reported positive while 22 more succumbed to the infection on Tuesday.

Out of the fresh Covid-19 cases, maximum were added by Ludhiana (103), followed by Jalandhar (94) and Patiala (82), according to the health department’s bulletin. The state has tested over 3.5 million samples so far.

Chief minister Singh was not a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Covid-19 review meeting with other states on Tuesday as he was not well. His media adviser said the chief minister was tested for coronavirus and the report came out negative.

Meanwhile, India’s Covid-19 went past 9.22 million after 44,376 fresh cases were registered in the last 24 hours, according to the Union health ministry’s dashboard. The active cases have continue to remain below the 500,000-mark while over 8.6 million people have recovered so far and the overall recovery rate stands at 93.72 per cent.