A decision on night curfew in Delhi has to be taken immediately and implemented soon, the High Court directed the Arvind Kejriwal government on Thursday amid a spike in the coronavirus cases.A status report has to be submitted by Dec 3, the court said after listening to the government.”It is now for the Delhi government to take a call on whether night curfew is required to be imposed in Delhi or some parts of Delhi and/or other measures need to be adopted to contain the virus,” the court observed.”The Delhi government shall take a decision on this aspect and implement the same without losing further time,” added the court, which has taken up the matter this month as the daily cases surged over the 8,000-mark.Over the last week, the daily cases’ spike remained above 6,000-mark.While 6,562 lives were lost in Delhi due to the deadly virus upto Nov 1, the death rate has crossed 2,000 in just a few days.Asked if it was planning to impose night curfews or weekend curfews, similar to other cities in the country that are experiencing a similar surge, the Delhi government had said, “There is no decision yet on imposing any kind of curfew, but it is under active consideration depending on the COVID-19 infection.”
On Wednesday, the Union Home Ministry issued fresh guidelines for states to contain the contagion, especially within containment zones, starting Dec 1.The Centre recommended stricter enforcement of containment zones, staggered offices timings where the weekly positivity rate is more than 10 per cent, “Covid-appropriate behaviour” and “night curfew after assessing local conditions”.
