A 16-day lockout will begin in the eastern Indian state of Bihar from July 16, the Bihar government announced on Tuesday.
The lockout was issued due to "the alarming increase in positive cases of Covid-19 in Bihar state in the past three weeks, where the positivity rate has also been considerably high," says the order. .
During the state closure, all government offices, commercial and private establishments, transportation services, educational institutions, places of worship and parks will remain closed, with the exception of certain essential services.
All hospital and medical facilities will remain open, agricultural activities, construction activities, industrial establishments will continue, with the implementation of the necessary precautions and standards of social distancing, according to the decree.
Bihar has 17,959 cases of coronavirus, including 160 deaths on Tuesday, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, the northern state of Punjab has banned public gatherings altogether, a statement from the Punjab government said on Monday.
The eastern states of Jharkhand and West Bengal as well as the western state of Maharashtra have also issued blockades which are scheduled to end on July 31 and Uttar Pradesh announced a blockade over the weekend until at the end of July.
The foreclosure in Bengaluru, the capital of southern India's Karnataka state, is also slated to begin Tuesday at 8 p.m. local time after a sudden spate of coronavirus cases in the region.
India currently has more than 900,000 total cases of coronavirus, including 23,727 deaths and 571,460 cures according to the Indian Ministry of Health. The country has the third highest number of cases in the world, behind the United States and Brazil, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
