Night curfew to begin at 6 PM in Chandigarh from Thursday due to spike in COVID cases

A day after the Punjab government imposed night curfew from 6 PM onwards in view of the relentless spike in COVID cases, the Chandigarh administration also decided to impose night curfew from 6 PM to 5 AM every day with effect from April 29. Presently, the curfew timings are from 9 PM to 5 AM.

During the curfew hours, all shops, malls, multiplexes and other public places will remain closed after 5 PM every day with home delivery allowed till 9 PM only. All non-essential activities will be banned during the night curfew. All educational institutions, coaching institutes, libraries etc. will also remain closed till May 15.

The decision was taken by the Administrator of Chandigarh, VPS Badnore in a high-level meeting held in Chandigarh on Wednesday.

Dr. Jagat Ram, Director of PGIMER, Chandigarh, who attended the meeting, disclosed that all ICU beds were full in the PGI where they have 297 COVID cases in Nehru Extension Block. Out of these, 87 patients belong to Chandigarh, 95 to Punjab, 44 to Haryana, 30 to Himachal Pradesh, 14 to Uttar Pradesh, 5 to New Delhi, three to Bihar and 19 from other states.

He mentioned that they have adequate oxygen supply with them and that the Union Government has promised to provide 150 oxygen concentrators to the PGIMER.

He also mentioned that they have tested 5,394 COVID samples, out of which 1,380 were found positive. Thus, the positivity rate was 25.5%.

Dr. Jasbinder Kaur, Director Principal, GMCH-32, revealed that the positivity rate was 15.5% in her hospital while the vaccine wastage was only 0.7%.

Expressing serious concern about the increasing number of COVID cases in the city, the Punjab Governor has directed the hospital authorities to enhance the number of ICU beds. He suggested that non-critical patients or mild/moderate cases, where patients can be shifted to COVID Care Centres or could receive medication at home could be accordingly discharged. All beds should be kept in reserve for severe and critical cases only, he said.

The Haryana government has not yet taken any decision with respect to night curfew in Panchkula, which adjoins Chandigarh. It had imposed Section 144 across the state on Wednesday.