On Thursday, the Kerala government announced a full lockdown in the state from May 8 to 16 while Rajasthan government also decided to impose a strict statewide lockdown from May 10 5 am to May 24 5am in view of the rising COVID-19 cases. Rajasthan’s Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that a nationwide lockdown is the only option left to check the spread of Covid-19.
Announcing the lockdown, the Kerala CM said, “The entire state of Kerala will be under lockdown from 6 am on 8 May to 16 May. This is in the background of a strong second wave of COVID-19.” The decision was taken a day after the state reported a record of 41,953 Covid-19 cases. The lockdown will come into force at 6 am on Saturday.
Kerala’s active caseload is 3.75 lakh which is the third highest in India and its test positivity rate as on Wednesday was 25.69 percent. The number of patients admitted to hospitals started increasing and this has resulted in the state’s health infrastructure to come under immense pressure.
In the last 24 hours, Rajasthan registered 17,532 fresh coronavirus cases, pushing the infection count to 7,02,568. The death toll surged to 5,182 as 161 more lives were lost to the pandemic since yesterday.
Recently, the Kerala state government urged the Centre to allot it 1,000 MT of imported liquid medical oxygen. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a letter, to advise the External Affairs Ministry to allot the required quantity of imported liquid medical oxygen partially from the current tranche of imports and the balance from future imports, in view of the depletion of storage due to the heavy daily demand.
With admission of patients to hospitals on the rise, the CM of Kerala said that 61 percent of oxygen beds in medical colleges and 51.28 percent of oxygen beds in other government hospitals were already occupied. In private hospitals, only 33 percent of oxygen beds are vacant for use for both Covid-19 and non-Covid patients. Besides, 61.3 percent of ICU beds in government hospitals are already used by Covid-19 and non-Covid patients. Only 27.3 percent of ventilators in the government sector and 24.7 percent in the private sector are in use.
Coronavirus (Covid-19) India Lockdown Updates:
- On Thursday, India reported 4,12,262 new cases and 3,980 deaths in the last 24 hours. India had become the first country in the world to register over 4 lakh infections in a single day on April 30, when it reported 4.08 lakh infections.
- Several Rajdhanis, Shatabdis and Vande Bharat Express trains from Delhi have been cancelled till further notice due to increase in Covid cases and poor occupancy.
- People travelling to Delhi from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana will have to undergo mandatory institutional quarantine for 14 days.
- Over 16.48 crore Covid vaccine doses administered so far.
- Chhattisgarh reports 13,846 new Covid-19 cases, 377 discharges and 212 deaths on Thursday.
- Gujarat reports 12,545 new coronavirus cases, over 13,000 recoveries.
- CM K Chandrasekhar Rao said that no lockdown will be imposed in Telangana.
- Maharashtra reports 62,194 new Covid-19 cases, 853 deaths.
- Uttarakhand sees record daily rise of 8,517 Covid-19 cases.
- Bengal reports the highest single-day deaths of 117 Covid patients, recording 18,431 infections.
- Earlier on Thursday, Sri Lanka announced that all arrivals from India will be banned with immediate effect due to the record rise in COVID-19 cases in the neighboring country.
- Several countries like the UK, the UAE, Australia and Singapore have already banned travelers from India as well as other South Asian countries.
- The Supreme Court on Thursday directed to prepare for the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic the Centre by creating a buffer stock of medical oxygen.
- Rashtriya Lok Dal chief and former Union minister Ajit Singh passed away on Thursday after losing battle to Covid-19.
- Mumbai will now get a drive-in vaccination zone in each administrative zone. The set up must be done in 24 hours
- 40 Oxygen Expresses run so far, around 2,511 tons liquid medical oxygen delivered adding 22 tankers are on the move with more than 400 tons of LMO for Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi.
- Maharashtra health minister said that there has been a shortage in Oxygen supply for two days now.
- Manipur government on Thursday extended lockdown period in greater Imphal till May 16 and night curfew will remain in force from 7pm to 5am.
- Despite a ‘severe shortage’ of water affecting many parts of Delhi, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Thursday said that it has no plans to restrict or cut water supply to Covid hospitals or other healthcare facilities.
- Those arriving in West Bengal by train must carry a negative RT-PCR report, the Railways said on Thursday.
- West Bengal has reported a huge surge in cases in the past few days.
- Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal thanked the Centre on Thursday for supplying Delhi with 730 metric tons of oxygen and requested hospitals to increase COVID beds that they had to cut down due to shortage of the life-saving gas in the past few days.
- Sujeet Singh, Director of National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said that the UK strain of coronavirus is currently dominating parts of north India while double mutants could be found mostly in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat. Also the B1.1.7 lineage of SARS CoV-2 (UK variant) is declining in proportion across the country in the last month and a half.
- The High Court of Bombay at Goa directed the state government to ensure that no person is permitted to enter Goa unless they have a Covid-19 negative certificate from May 10.
- Popular comedy actor Pandu passed away on Thursday due to Covid-19 related complications.
- For the first time in history, the Australian government imposed a ban on its citizens from returning home, if they have spent time in India up to 14 days before flying back.
