The local government of India's Punjab on Friday decided to expand night curfew to more areas in the northern state in efforts to curb a recent spike in the local COVID-19 infections, officials said.
According to the officials, the night curfew imposed in Mohali and Fatehgarh Sahib districts is effective from Friday night.
"In view of the increasing COVID-19 cases, the Punjab government has decided to impose night curfew in Mohali and Fatehgarh Sahib from today," an official said. "The curfew will be effective from tonight from 11:00 p.m. (local time) to 5:00 a.m. (local time) till further orders."
In Ludhiana and Patiala districts, the night curfew will also start from Friday night.
Last week the state government imposed night curfew in Jalandhar, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala districts.
The night curfew allows relaxations in case of medical emergency and for workers in factory running on 24-hour shifts.
According to India's federal health ministry on Friday, Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu states continued to report a surge in the local daily new COVID-19 cases. The states cumulatively accounted for 85.6 percent of the new confirmed cases reported in the past 24 hours.
Last week federal government rushed support teams to Maharashtra and Punjab to assist in the local COVID-19 control and containment measures in response to the recent spike in Punjab.
According to the health ministry's updated figures on Friday morning, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Punjab has reached 193,345 with 5,996 deaths.
READ ALSO:
