Health

Restaurants, offices shut in Indian capital against 3rd wave of Covid-19

New Delhi, Jan 11 (EFE).- The authorities in the Indian capital of New Delhi ordered Tuesday the closure of restaurants and offices as a part of its latest restrictions to check growing number of coronavirus infections as India faces its third wave with 168,063 cases in the last 24 hours.

“It has been observed that numbers of COVID-19 cases (including the cases of Omicron variant) have been rapidly increasing over the last few days & positivity rate has crossed 23%,” the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) said in a public order.

DDMA ordered the closure of all bars and restaurants – although the latter may still deliver food to people’s houses -, and private offices in the capital, with exceptions for activities considered essential.

These new restrictions are in addition to those imposed in recent weeks in New Delhi, such as curfew at nights and on weekends, measures similar to those taken by a large number of Indian states in the face of rising number of cases.

The capital reported 19,166 daily cases on Tuesday, while in May last year, when India became the global epicenter of the pandemic because of a virulent second wave, New Delhi reached a maximum of 25,000 infections a day.

According to the Ministry of Health, the Asian country recorded 168,063 infections and 277 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 35.8 million and deaths to 484,213.

The authorities estimate that the disease could peak between 500,000 and one million patients every 24 hours due to the spread of the contagious Omicron variant, of which 4,461 cases have been detected in India so far.

India has administered 1.528 billion jabs of the vaccine against the coronavirus, and 639 million people have received both doses, according to the official Cowin platform. EFE

daa/sc

Related Articles

Back to top button