Punjab imposes daily night curfew, weekend lockdown to curb Covid spike

The weekend lockdown would be imposed from Friday 6 PM to Monday 5 AM.

In a tweet, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh wrote: "Due to continuous & rapid rise of #Covid19 cases in Punjab, Cabinet today has decided to impose daily lockdown from 6 PM to 5 AM and weekend lockdown from Friday 6 PM to Monday 5 AM. Urge you all to stay at home & step out only if absolutely necessary. Seek your full cooperation."

Like several others, Punjab too reported a massive surge in new Covid cases over the past few weeks.

The daily new cases in the state have shot up from 600 in late-February to nearly 7,000.

On Monday morning, Punjab reported 6,980 fresh cases and 76 Covid-linked deaths.

The active caseload is now nearly 50,000, which is more than double the previous high of around 22,000.

Overall Punjab has logged more than 3.39 lakh Covid cases in the past two years.

Meanwhile, the Centre earlier in the evening instructed the states to impose strict restrictions for 14 days in specific areas in order to flatten the curve of the Covid cases' spike.

The rules stated that restrictions would be imposed when the positivity rate is 10 per cent or more for a week and when more than 60 per cent of hospital beds are occupied.

The centre has asked states to direct district authorities to implement the containment framework in areas reporting high Covid cases.