Mulling night curfew, weekend restrictions as COVID-19 cases surge, Delhi govt tells HC

The Delhi government is planning to impose night and weekend curfews amid rising COVID-19 cases in the capital. The AAP government, in response to Delhi High Court's enquiry as to what it is doing to flatten the rising COVID-19 graph, said this afternoon that a policy on imposing night curfews or weekend curfews in the city is "under active consideration".

A bench led by Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad, which was hearing a plea to ramp up coronavirus testing in Delhi, asked if the government was following any protocol to ensure that the 50 attendees-limit at weddings was being adhered to.

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"What have you done with the fine amount gathered through COVID-19 violations in Delhi?Use it for a good cause," the court said, as it also observed that numbers for RT-PCR testing, the gold standard for COVID-19 tests, had improved after the court took note of it repetitively.

The court asked the government how COVID-19 behaviour was being checked, to which the government responded that it was holding meetings with resident welfare associations (RWAs) in this regard.

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"Some viral videos suggest that thousands of people have been turning up for such meetings please look at them and respond. These meetings could become COVID-19 spreaders," the court noted. "You need to tell us how many associations and RWAs you reached out to and what exactly is the plan to engage them in the Covid-19 management strategy."

Delhi has so far recorded 8,720 deaths and 5,45,787 cases due the virus.

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