Lock down Extended till end of April '20 in India

The new coronavirus pandemic has now infected more than 8,000 people in India even as the nation went into the world’s biggest lockdown to combat spreading of the highly contagious pathogen.

India added 918 fresh cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally to 8,447 in Asia’s third-largest economy, according to the health ministry’s update as of 5 p.m. on April 12. This includes 273 deaths and 765 people who have recovered.

Lockdown Extension :

As far as lockdown is concerned, social distancing is key, according to Lav Agarwal. Even if there is no lockdown tomorrow, everyone needs to focus on social distancing as part of behavioural change.

“Not everything is known about this particular virus and different kind of facts keep coming to us on a continuous basis,” Agarwal said. “Some resurgence have been noticed in China, Japan and Korea in coronavirus cases. This is also a cause of worry to us as well. We need to ensure our containment and social distancing measures are there.”

Several chief ministers recommended a two-week extension of the lockdown at their meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. While the central government’s statement says nothing about extending the nationwide shutdown that’s set to end next week on April 14, five states—Odisha, Punjab, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Telangana—extended it in their regions, either across the state or in a graded fashion.