66% citizens want one-month complete lockdown in high coronavirus load districts: Survey

Sixty-six per cent of people are currently in favour of a complete lockdown in 15 high coronavirus load districts, a survey showed. On June 12, the figure stood at 74 per cent. Similarly, 69 per cent citizens said that a partial lockdown is needed in these districts with increasing coronavirus cases and having 500 active cases, the LocalCircles survey said. The respondents are in favour of re-imposing a strict lockdown in these high viral load districts (as identified by Niti Aayog) so that the spread of coronavirus in the country could be slowed down.  

The top 15 districts with highest virus load include Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Thane, Pune, Indore, Kolkata, Jaipur, Surat, Hyderabad, Aurangabad, Jodhpur, Gurugram and Chengalpattu.

Maharashtra recently announced a lockdown extension till  July 31 and Nagaland extended it till July 15. Tamil Nadu also announced a total lockdown in Chennai, Madurai, and surrounding areas till July 5 and from July 6 to July 31. Chennai will revert to pre-June 19 relaxed lockdown. The survey received over 16,000 votes from 233 districts of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to the nation, today highlighted how an increasing number of people were not observing social distancing and not wearing masks which could lead to further increase in cases of COVID-19, especially as India goes into the monsoon season.

Meanwhile, India reported 418 deaths and 18,522 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said. With this, positive cases in India stand at 5,66,840, including 2,15,125 active cases, 3,34,822 recoveries and 16,893 deaths. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data suggests total 86,08,564 cases have been reported so far, including 2,10,292 samples tested in the past 24 hours.

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