BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made it clear on Friday that if the COVID-19 cases continued their upward trend in Indore and Bhopal in the next three days, then night curfew will be imposed in both cities from Monday.
The decision was made after the COVID-19 situation review meeting chaired by the CM in Bhopal on Friday. The meeting happened in the wake of six COVID-19 patients in Indore testing positive for the highly contagious UK variant of the killer virus and the novel Coronavirus cases continuing to rise significantly in Indore and Bhopal.
“Six patients have been detected positive for the UK variant which spreads faster than other strains. Also the cases of the virus are rising rapidly once again in many districts of the state, particularly Indore and Bhopal. During the last one week, Indore has reported an average 151 cases daily, while state capital Bhopal has reported 78 average cases daily, followed by 16 in Jabalpur, 12 in Betul and 11 cases each in Ujjain and Chhindwara. The cases in Indore have doubled in the last 15 days, owing to which strict measures are a must in both Indore and Bhopal, if the situation doesn’t improve in the next three days,” the CM said.
In Indore, as many as six samples out of the 103 samples sent from Indore and Burhanpur for genome sequencing at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in New Delhi, have tested positive for the UK strain. The reports from the NCDC were received in Indore on Thursday late night.
Confirming the development, Indore Divisional Commissioner Pawan Sharma said on Friday that teams are being sent to these six persons (who have tested positive for the highly infectious UK strain) in Indore to figure out their travel history and also perform their and family members contact tracing.
“As per state government’s directions, we’ll monitor the COVID-19 situation over the next three days and if the situation isn’t brought under control by then, we might even consider at imposing a night curfew in Indore,” the Indore Divisional Commissioner said.
As per Indore district chief medical officer (CMHO) Dr Pravin Jadia, “we’re doing the contact tracing of the six persons in whom the UK variant has been detected. None of the six have had any UK or international travel history. Three of them work at the same factory in Indore.”