Lockdown in Punjab? Night curfew in Chandigarh - What's allowed, what's not

Amid the rising cases of Coronavirus, a night curfew has been imposed in Chandigarh starting Wednesday, from 10 pm to 5 am. According to the Chandigarh administration, no gatherings, parties, non-essential activities will be allowed during the period.

"In Punjab, around 4.5 per cent of deaths are reported due to COVID. Compared to Punjab, active cases and death toll are very low in Delhi and Haryana. It is satisfactory that share of RT-PCR tests in average daily tests has increased to 76 per cent in Punjab," Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said. The teams will assist state health departments and district administrations in surveillance, control and containment measures. They will be submitting daily reports to the state government and Union health ministry, Bhushan said.

Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab have shown a steep rise in the daily new cases.

The Central Government has rushed 50 high-level multi-disciplinary public health teams to 50 districts across Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Punjab in view of the recent very large numbers of daily new Covid-19 cases and daily mortality being consistently reported by these States.

India recorded 96,982 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally to 1,26,86,049 on Tuesday. This comes a day after daily cases crossed one-lakh mark.

On Monday, the country recorded 1,03,558 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day tally since the coronavirus outbreak.

The Indian Medical Association also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggesting "gearing up of Covid-19 vaccination drive with immediate effect and permit those above 18 years to receive vaccine".