Authorities in Uttar Pradesh announced on Wednesday a hard lockdown in 12 hotspots where most number of Covid-19 cases have been registered.
Twenty five such clusters – 13 in Ghaziabad and 12 in Gautam Budh Nagar – will be under intensive lockdown measures for a week, with residents confined indoors, all shops and banks shut, and all vehicular movement completely curtailed.
So, what is a hard lockdown? And how is it different from the current restrictions placed across the country to check the spread of Covid-19?
Here’s a look:
–Residents living in hot spots won’t be allowed to step out of their houses.
–All houses in hotspots will be searched and sanitised.
–Drones will monitor activities in the sealed areas.
–Health department staff will make house-to-house visit to identify infected people and quarantine them.
–Essential commodities, including edible items and medicines, will be delivered at doorsteps after order is placed online.
–Entry of media in hot spots will be banned. Only government photographer will be permitted and government will release pictures to the media.
–People can contact control rooms and helplines established by the districts’ administration for emergency services.
–People will have to cover their face with mask or scarf while moving in the lockdown areas.
–Administration and police will make public announcements through loudspeakers in the sealed and lockdown areas.
–Police will barricade the sealed area and organize intensive patrolling on roads and in lanes.
–Vegetable and fruit markets, banks and ration outlets will remain closed.
–Lockdown passes issued to civilians after March 25 will be ineffective
–Any person trying to enter or exit the hot spots till April 15 will be booked
–Vegetable and fruit markets, banks and ration outlets will remain closed.
