Modi urges India’s 1.3 billion citizens not to let up
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to comply with a nationwide lockdown and social distancing measures yesterday, a day after some of the world’s toughest restrictions were eased slightly while cases of Covid19 continued to mount.
In a radio address, Modi said the country was in the middle of a ‘‘war’’ and the country’s 1.3 billion citizens should not be misled into believing the spread of the virus had been brought fully under control by more than a month of lockdown.
‘‘We should not be trapped into overconfidence and nurse the belief that coronavirus has not reached our city, our village, our streets, our office, and so will not reach them,’’ Modi said.
India’s high population density, poor sanitation infrastructure and high rates of internal migration have raised concern over the spread of the virus in a country with 27,977 cases so far of Covid19, the disease it causes, and 884 deaths.
The authorities have set up teams to focus on compliance with lockdown measures imposed on March 25, but experts fear they have not been able to contain the spread of Covid19.
‘‘Physical distancing, covering the face with a cover or a mask and washing our hands again and again will be the biggest medicine to fight this disease in the days to come,’’ Modi said.
The lockdown, in which domestic and international travel is banned and factories, schools, offices and all shops other than those supplying essential services are shut, is due to end on May 3, but authorities may extend it.
India has allowed some small shops in residential areas to reopen with half the usual number of staff members working at any one time wearing masks and gloves.
In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, government officials yesterday reversed the decision to open several retail outlets, citing growing numbers of infections across the western state.
Authorities continued to send hundreds of migrant labourers who had set out on foot from cities where they had lost their livelihoods to their homes or to quarantine centres across India.
In the eastern state of Odisha, nearly two dozen fishermen were stopped and quarantined on the coast after they had sailed for five days from the southern coast, an official said.
Thousands of people pack coronavirus quarantine centres in government buildings across India, complaining of poor food and sanitation. A lack of social distancing between inmates has led to minor scuffles.
Three men were arrested after a woman said she was gangraped while under temporary quarantine alone in a school building in the desert state of Rajasthan, police said.
Many healthcare workers also complained of poor facilities at India’s overburdened hospitals and nursing homes. — Reuters