Haryana announces full lockdown in state for a week starting tomorrow

"From May 3, Monday, the entire state of Haryana will be under complete lockdown for seven days," health minister Vij said in a tweet in Hindi.

Haryana home and health minister Anil Vij announced on Sunday that the state will go into complete lockdown for a week amid sharp spike in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the state.

A family member of a Covid-19 patient arrives to refill an empty oxygen cylinder outside a filling center in Manesar, Haryana. (Vipin Kumar /HT Photo)

"From May 3, Monday, the entire state of Haryana will be under complete lockdown for seven days," health minister Vij said in a tweet in Hindi.

Haryana on Saturday registered its biggest single-day jump in Covid-related deaths as the state recorded 125 deaths which took the toll to 4,341, while 13,588 fresh cases pushed the infection count in the state to 501,566.

Watch: Lockdown in Haryana for a week starting tomorrow, Anil Vij announces

The number of active cases in the state crossed the one-lakh mark for the first time since the pandemic began on Saturday. The state currently has 102,516 active Covid-19 cases and the hardest-hit cities Gurugram and Faridabad account for 50 per cent of the cases, according to the state's health bulletin.

Several districts in the state are already under a weekend lockdown which started from 10pm on Friday and will end on 5am on Monday. The weekend lockdown was announced by the state government in nine districts across the state on Friday, which include, Gurugram, Panchkula, Faridabad, Sonipat, Rohtak, Karnal, Hisar, Sirsa, and Fatehabad.

“Whereas, the Covid-19 pandemic is again posing threat to public health, the Haryana government has considered it necessary to take effective measures to prevent its spread in the state,” excerpts from the order announcing the weekend lockdown said.

India reported 392,488 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday and a record 3,689 related fatalities which pushed the infection count to 19,557,457 and the death toll to 215,542 respectively, according to the Union health ministry's dashboard at 8am. With this, the active cases in the country crossed the 33-lakh mark as the country as they increase to 3,349,644, thus comprising 17.13 per cent of the total infections. The recovery rate in the country dropped to 81.77 per cent as the number of people who recuperated from the viral disease stood at 15,992,271.