Sealing borders, curbs on travellers: States gear up to tackle Covid-19 surge

Gehlot announced that some strict decisions would be taken for the next fortnight and detailed guidelines and SOPs would be announced soon

Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, the government of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab have stepped up measures such as sealing of borders, curbs on travellers and stepping up vaccinations to control the spread of the infectious disease.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot chaired a meeting late Saturday evening with public health experts, senior officials to review the Covid-19 situation in the state. The review meeting was telecast live on Youtube and Facebook to let the people know the actual status of the pandemic in the state.

After the meeting, Gehlot announced that some strict decisions would be taken for the next fortnight and detailed guidelines and standard operating procedures would be announced soon.

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In Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was planning to restrict the movement of people from neighbouring Chhattisgarh, which reported 5,818 fresh cases on Saturday, the highest single-day surge for the state.

“I do not want a longer lockdown. There will be limited lockdowns, but not across the state,” he said adding that limited lockdown was already in place in Chhindwara, Ratlam, Khargone and Betul.

Chouhan said the state government had already put restrictions on the movement of people from Maharashtra, which reported over 57,000 fresh cases on Sunday.

Read | Maharashtra records over 57,000 Covid-19 cases in fresh spike

“There are only three ways to stop this pandemic without a lockdown— wear a mask, maintain physical distancing and vaccination,” he said adding that the government was working on all these fronts.

Chouhan said the state government was also increasing the number of hospital beds to treat Covid-19 patients and beefing up health infrastructure.

In Punjab, the government had issued orders to step up the vaccination drive and administer vaccines to all persons over 45 years within this month.

Punjab had administered vaccine doses to 10 lakh people and plans to inoculate 32 lakh beneficiaries in the next two weeks.

In Uttarakhand, where Kumbh Mela is underway in Haridwar, the state government had asked travellers from 12 states – Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan — visiting the state by road, air and train to carry a negative RT-PCR test report.