Curbs on New Year celebrations will be imposed strictly: Udupi DC

The district administration will strictly impose restrictions during the New Year celebrations in order to contain the spread of Omicron.

Udupi Deputy Commissioner Kurma Rao told reporters in DC hall on Monday that night curfew will be in place from December 28, 2021, to January 7, 2022. Only emergency services will be permitted during curfew hours. The medical services will be available as usual.

Employees working in emergency sectors and industries on night duty should display their identity cards. As bus, train and flight services had been permitted, passengers should produce valid documents, he said.

Goods transport, home deliveries and e-commerce are also permitted. The guidelines on celebrating New Year celebrations had been issued, he added.

Rao said pubs, restaurants and bars should not organise programmes like dance and music concerts.

Only people who have taken two doses of the vaccine should be allowed. The number of entries should be restricted to 50%, he added.

He said the number of people permitted for functions and celebrations had been restricted to 300 from December 28. He stressed the need to follow Covid appropriate behaviour.

The deputy commissioner said the district will be giving booster doses for frontline workers and vaccination for children aged between 15 and 18 years. As many as 96.03% of the targeted population had received the first dose, while 82.97% had received the second dose.

The positivity rate is 0.2% and there are 55 active cases. The results of 58 samples are pending for genome sequencing test, he informed.

Elaborating on the testing carried out at the MAHE campus, he said in the past two weeks swab tests were conducted on 10,733 people and 35 had tested positive. Another 20,000 on campus will be tested by next week in a phased manner.

The testing rate had been increased and special teams had been appointed for the purpose. A meeting was held with the MAHE authorities, he added.