Is Haryana moving towards lockdown with surge in Covid cases?

Even as covid-19 cases in Haryana continue to surge, Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala Wednesday said the state is “not moving towards a lockdown” and is only taking “critical steps” to prevent the pandemic from spreading further.

Speaking to the media after flagging off an ‘Advanced Cardiac Care Ambulance’ at Artemis Hospital, two days after the Haryana government announced a night curfew, Chautala offered reassurance to people working in the state that a second lockdown is not in the offing in Haryana.

“I want to assure every single person working in Haryana that you do not need to worry, the state is not moving towards a lockdown.

The state is trying to only make the system run smoothly so that the pandemic does not spread.

The state is taking critical steps towards this.

The Prime Minister himself, during a discussion with Chief Ministers of states regarding this, had said that we will not move towards a lockdown, we have to only curtail, and for curtailing, I feel night curfew is an important step,” said Chautala.

Adding that “no industrial activity” will be stopped in the state, the deputy CM said that citizens have to only stop their work at 10 pm “so that at least the movement in the evening that was causing a chain of spreading gets cut down a bit.”

“I feel that testing has increased across the country and Haryana has been a leader in this.

No state develops more medical facilities than us, and it is a result of this that our recovery rate is amongst the top in the country.

We are trying that, in this manner, the covid situation can be monitored, controlled and cut off,” he said.

Chautala, while speaking to the media, also mentioned the farmers’ agitation that has been underway since November last year, and said that he would appeal to  PM Modi to resume discussions with the protesting farmers.

“Today, people have been sitting at the borders of our state for 4-4.5 months.