The Asian Age

All eateries in city closed till March 31 Number of people at public gatherings reduced to 20

- AGE CORRESPOND­ENT

In view of rising incidents of coronaviru­s cases in the country, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday announced several important decisions taken in the wake of COVID-19 cases in Delhi. He directed that dine-in arrangemen­ts in all the restaurant­s shall remain closed in Delhi till March 31. However, restaurant­s can continue home-deliveries and takeaways. He also said that non-essential public services will be disallowed from Friday.

Briefing the media in the Delhi Secretaria­t on Thursday, CM Kejriwal said: “The Delhi government is taking all relevant measures to contain the spread of coronaviru­s. We have had 10 cases in Delhi until now, with the unfortunat­e demise of one of the patients. Two patients have recovered and one patient has left for Singapore. We currently have 6 COVID-19 patients, most of them are recovering now.”

“We have a capacity of 768 beds to be installed in the quarantine facilities until now, with only 57 beds that are currently occupied. We have 550 isolation beds in the Delhi government hospitals for the treatment of COVID19 patients, out of which 40 beds have been occupied with suspected Coronaviru­s cases. There are 95 beds available in the central government hospitals, out of which 67 beds have been occupied by suspected COVID-19 patients. We are also mapping the requiremen­ts of all the government and private hospitals in Delhi, and we will issue directions that all the machinery and ventilator facilities in these hospitals should be in working conditions,” he added.

Mr Kejriwal said: “We have also started stamping

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We have started stamping people who have been advised to self-quarantine, owing to many patients who have been escaping quarantine premises — Arvind Kejriwal,

Delhi CM

all the people who have been advised to selfquaran­tine themselves, owing to many of the patients who have been escaping the quarantine premises. We want to tell all these people who escape, that this is a very dangerous situation, and you can infect others who deliberate­ly or non-deliberate­ly come in your contact. If you do not abide by the Do’s and Don’ts, we will have to take strict measures against you, like filing an FIR or taking you into custody.”

“We are disinfecti­ng buses, ISBTs, and Metros daily. We were also disinfecti­ng private public service vehicles, like autos, taxis, and cabs daily in two shifts from 10 am-12 pmand 4:30 pm-6:30 pm at all our DTC and cluster bus depots for free. Owing to the long queues at the bus depots, we have decided to conduct this disinfecti­on drive from 10 am- 6 pm. We will also deploy more manpower at these bus depots if required. There has also been a huge decline in the inter-state buses, especially from Jammu and Kashmir, and Nepal,” said CM Kejriwal.

Mr Kejriwal appealed to the people to avoid stepping out of their homes. “Senior citizens are the most vulnerable of all, and I want to appeal to all the senior citizens to avoid going out at all hours,” he said.

 ??  ?? A pedestrian outside a closed cafe in New Delhi on Thursday.
A pedestrian outside a closed cafe in New Delhi on Thursday.
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