Amid everyday steep increase in COVID-19 cases, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal announced a complete weekend curfew to curb the spread. The Delhi CM announced that while gyms, spas and malls will remain shut, essential services will continue to operate. The weekend curfew will be imposed from Friday, April 16, 10 PM to Monday, April 19, 6 AM.

Background:

The decision to impose a city-wide weekend curfew was taken during a meeting between L G Anil Baijal, CM Arvind Kejriwal and other top officials. Although Mr. Kejriwal has in the past gone one record to say that he is not in the favour of imposing a lockdown, he had also claimed that he wouldn’t be left with option if the healthcare infrastructure starts to crumble.

Delhi Weekend Curfew Details:

In a virtual press briefing, Delhi CM Kejriwal observed that citizens during the weekends mostly go out for leisure and entertainment activities. As these activities can be curtailed, the Delhi government has decided to impose weekend curfew to break the chain of spread.

CM Kejriwal also highlighted the fact that all essential activities such as visit to hospitals, airports, railway stations, etc will be allowed.

Moreover, the Delhi CM also observed that as this is the wedding season in India, a lot of people have already decided on the dates of their weddings. “We don’t want to inconvenience these people, and hence we have decided that we will allow the movement of those who are going to weddings by providing them with curfew passes”.

It should be noted that as always, the number of people at weddings are set at 50 and only 20 people are allowed to attend funerals.

Meanwhile, auditoriums, malls, restaurants (dine-in), gyms and spas, will be shut down. Movie theatres will be allowed to operate at 30% of their capacity only on weekdays.

All public gatherings that are social, religious or political in nature will continue to be remained banned.

No Shortage of beds as of now: Delhi CM Kejriwal

In his virtual address, CM Kejriwal also said that currently the city has over 5,000 hospital beds vacant as of today. He also urged people to not be too picky or choosy in where they want to be hospitalized for their treatment.

“Our current priority is to provide medical attention to whoever needs it and provide them beds wherever they are available. In such situation, I urge people not to be too picky. As the CM of Delhi, I assure its citizens that as of now there is no shortage of bed.”

Delhi COVID-19 Numbers:

On April 15th, the national capital reported 17,282 new COVID-19 cases which was the city’s highest single-day increase since the numbers started being registered last March. This brings the total tally to 7,67,438. Currently the city has 50, 736 active cases. So far, 23, 77, 014 vaccine doses have been administered to the Delhi citizens.

National Outbreak:

On April 14, 2021, India added another unfortunate record to its books. Over 2 lakh COVID-19 cases were registered on April 14, making it the highest number of infections registered since the pandemic. With the 2-lakh+ infections, India’s cumulative tally has surpassed the 1.4 lakh mark and is at 1,40,74,564 cases. With over 1 lakh COVID-19 positive cases for the 9th consecutive day, the nation now has 13,88,515 cases in 9 days.

India and USA Compared

To give our readers a context, we will compare India’s numbers to USA’s. The USA crossed its 1-lakh mark daily COVID-19 cases on 30th October. The country doubled its daily COVID cases on just November 20th, and added 2,06,882 daily fresh COVID-19 cases. This proves that US took 20 days to move from 1 lakh to 2 lakh daily cases. Meanwhile, India took just 10 days.