Lucknow: Hours after the Uttar Pradesh government opposed the Allahabad High Court’s order to impose lockdown in five districts amid surgung cases and secured a stay from the Supreme Court, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday announced that the weekend curfew will be imposed in districts with over 2,000 active Covid cases.

The nearly 60-hour-long weekend curfew will be in place from Friday 8 pm to Monday 7 am. Going by the current number of active cases, at least 26 of the 75 districts of UP have over 2,000 active cases — Lucknow, Prayagraj, Kanpur Nagar, Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Meerut, Gorakhpur, Bareilly, Jhansi, Moradabad, Agra, Muzaffarnagar, Ballia, Barabanki, Lakhimpur Kheri, Jaunpur, Rae Bareilly, Deoria, Ghazipur, Azamgarh, Sonbhadra, Sultanpur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, and Lalitpur. Last Sunday, a similar curfew was imposed across the state from Saturday 8 pm to Monday 7 am. In the Cabinet meeting, the government also decided to extend the night curfew – between 8 pm to 7 am – in all the districts with more than 500 active cases.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Adityanath directed officials of districts bordering other states to exercise special caution and make arrangements for migrant workers returning from Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Delhi. The Home Department and the Transport Department should coordinate and act, he said and directed officials to ensure treatment and testing of the people returning from other states. In the wake of the Centre opening up vaccination for all adults from May 1, the CM directed officials to start making arrangements for vaccination drive. The government has announced five new oxygen plants in the state in the state, and officials were directed to start work on this soon. “In the future, hospitals with 100 beds will need to have an oxygen plant,” said a government spokesperson.

The Covid-19 death toll in Uttar Pradesh rose by 162, to cross the 10,000-mark on Tuesday while 29,754 fresh cases pushed the tally of infections in the state to over nine lakh, according to a senior official. The number of recoveries has increased with over 14,391 patients discharged in the past 24 hours. A total of 6,75,702 people have so far recuperated from the disease in the state leaving 2,23,544 active cases, Additional Chief Secretary, Amit Mohan Prasad told reporters.

The toll in the state is now 10,159 while the total number of cases is 9,09,405. Of the total active cases, 1,76,760 are in home isolation, 4,455 are undergoing treatment in private hospitals and the rest are admitted in government hospitals, he said. Prasad said over 3.86 crore samples have so far been tested.

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