Lockdown in Maharashtra Extended by 15 Days: State Health Minister Tope

Mumbai: Maharashtra Cabinet and Health Minister Rajesh Tope, on Wednesday, announced the extension of lockdown in Maharashtra by 15 days due to the highest rising number of COVID cases. The previous lockdown, which was imposed on April 4, was about to end on April 30.

The Maharashtra government's decision follows a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Tope said that due to the rising COVID-19 infections in the state, all cabinet ministers requested an extension of the lockdown.

The government had also clamped other restrictions like the closure of private offices, theatres, and salons to curb the unprecedented surge in the cases. Currently, the weekend lockdown is from 8 PM on Fridays and lasts till 7 AM on Mondays.

As per the source, earlier, the state government had also directed groceries, vegetable shops, and dairies to remain open only for four hours, between 7 AM and 11 AM, and banned home delivery after 8 PM till May 1.

On Wednesday, the state government also announced its decision to vaccinate all adults aged 18-44 years against COVID-19 free of cost. The move is expected to cost the state government Rs 6,500 crore.

However, Maharashtra still continues to be the worst COVID-19 affected state in the nation reporting over 66,000 fresh cases of coronavirus on Tuesday and 895 COVID-induced fatalities, the highest spike in the number of deaths witnessed by the state so far.

India has reported 3,60,960 fresh cases on Tuesday, the highest ever single-day spike recorded globally. In the last 24 hours, 3,293 fresh cases of COVID-induced fatalities were reported taking the total death toll of the country to 2.01 lakhs. Yesterday's surge in the cases of the novel coronavirus takes the total tally of the country's caseload to 1.79 crores while the active cases amount to 29.71 lakhs.

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