More lockdowns on cards as virus cases near 800K

mumbai — India reported a record 26,506 new coronavirus cases on Friday as authorities re-imposed lockdowns in its most populous state and in an industrial hub, home to automakers, drug factories and brewers.

The new cases pushed India’s tally to nearly 800,000 cases, the world’s third-biggest outbreak, behind only the United States and

Brazil in confirmed infections.

There have been more than 21,000 deaths in India since the first case was detected there in January, federal health ministry data showed on Friday. The capital, New Delhi, along with Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for about 60 per cent of its cases.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, anxious to jump-start an economy crippled by the epidemic and put millions of people back to work, in early June eased an initial lockdown of the 1.3 billion population imposed in March.

But rising new flare-ups of the virus has been forcing some major industrial towns and states to impose localised restrictions.

A nine-day curfew was imposed in Aurangabad, an industrial town in Maharashtra, to contain a spike in infections that has affected operations of automakers such as Bajaj Auto.

“Employees could not go to work today due to the curfew,” said Thengade Bajirao, president of the Bajaj Auto Workers’ Union.

India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, will lock down for two days from late on Friday as cases there surged past 32,000, the state government said in a statement. —

Employees could not go to work today due to the curfew Thengade Bajirao

President of the Bajaj Auto Workers’ Union