Following Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, Haryana today became the third state to bring back night curfews in view of rising cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant of Covid. Starting tonight, public commute will be prohibited from 11 pm to 5 am across Haryana till further orders. Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar today also said that public places like malls, restaurants, banks, sabzi mandi, grain markets, and offices will mandate double vaccination for entry and no more than 200 people will be allowed in such places and public events starting January 1. The chief minister made the announcement while chairing a Covid review meeting on Friday.
"In indoor and open spaces, gatherings of up to 50% of the area capacity will be allowed with a ceiling of maximum 200 and 300 people respectively, subject to strict observance of Covid appropriate behavioural norms and social distancing," a government order said. The order also directed strict adherence to "No Mask No Service". Only those with face masks will be allowed on public and private transport, and into government or private establishments for availing of any goods and services.
The rest of the Covid guidelines will remain the same as those announced on November 27.
Haryana has recorded six cases of Omicron so far. Three of them are residents of Gurugram and had been directly admitted to a Delhi hospital after testing positive at the airport screening. They haven't entered Haryana yet.
India has reported a total of 358 Omicron cases so far.
The vaccine mandate for public places was announced two days ago during the winter session of the Haryana assembly. State health minister Anil Vij had said this measure will strengthen the long fight against Covid amid fears of the Omicron variant.
Mr Vij had recently announced that all Covid vaccination facilities in Haryana will remain open on holidays as well.
The chief minister stressed the need to make people aware of the new variant to stem the spread of the virus. The chief minister also spoke about the need to focus on vaccination and appealed to the people to get both doses of the vaccine. He directed the health department to make all preparations to tackle Covid cases.
Mr Khattar pointed out that 2.61 lakh people got vaccinated following the December 23 order making double vaccination mandatory to enter public places. This number was one lakh more than the daily average vaccination of about 1.5 lakhs. 30-32 thousand patients are being tested for Covid every day and samples of those found positive are being sent for genome sequencing, he said.
Others present in the meeting were deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, health minister Anil Vij, chief secretary Sanjeev Kaushal, chief principal secretary to CM DS Dhesi, and others.
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