Lockdowns are back. On Tuesday, Bihar announced that the entire state would be locking down for 15 days starting from Thursday. This comes...
Lockdowns are back. On Tuesday, Bihar announced that the entire state would be locking down for 15 days starting from Thursday. This comes after a spate of localised lockdowns as cities, towns and districts across India have been putting in containment measures to stop the number of Covid-19 cases from rising.
From June 28, Guwahati went into total lockdown, with even grocery stores staying closed. Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram was locked down from July 6. Patna locked down from June 10 while Maharashtra’s Pune started three days later. Bengaluru took a similar decision effective from July 14.
Kolkata, meanwhile, declared a strict but partial lockdown which would apply only to containment zones. The state of Uttar Pradesh shut down over the weekend – from Friday 10 pm to Monday 5 am.
According to Mint, around a third of the Indian population is now affected by these local lockdowns.
This comes even as India’s country-wide lockdown began to be lifted from June 1 after more than two months of what has often been described as the world’s harshest coronavirus containment restrictions.
The move towards local lockdowns has been recommended by experts. A total nationwide lockdown was crushing for India’s economy. Moreover, given India’s continental population, local lockdowns will be able to better respond to...
