Hyderabad: Although the medical and health department has submitted a report to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Monday stating that there was no need for imposing lockdown in the state, the state government is seriously considering proposals to impose weekend curfew or night curfew on all days in the wake of rising Covid cases.
Official sources said the Chief Minister would review Covid situation in a day or two and take a call. The state is witnessing a sudden spike in Covid cases during the past two days as they crossed the 1,000-mark. The cases have more than doubled from 400 to 1,500 in the last two days.
However, there is confusion in the government whether to impose Covid restrictions prior to Sankranti on January 15 or later, sources added, which will be discussed in the Chief Minister’s meeting.
The decisions taken by the governments in neighbouring states Maharashtra and Karnataka imposing Covid restrictions are also learnt to have influenced the state government to follow them.
There are fears that if restrictions are not imposed on state borders, the virus may spread further in Telangana. During Covid second wave in April 2021, the Chief Minister announced imposition of Covid restrictions in a phased manner. First, it started with night curfews and later extended to day curfews and continued until June when cases subsided.
The Chief Minister now wants to follow the same with the increase in Covid cases, considered as the spread of third wave in the state. The Maharashtra government has imposed night curfew from December 25 while Karnataka government imposed weekend curfew from January 5.
Rao has advanced holidays for all educational institutions to January 8 due to Covid cases on Monday against Sankranti vacation from January 11. As of now, the holidays for educational institutions were declared till January 16 but likely to be extended further after Sankranti. Educational institutions are likely to be asked to shift to online mode again.
The seating capacity in film theatres is also likely to be reduced to 50 per cent again to ensure physical distancing.
