Covid-19: Maharashtra's Parbhani district to be under one-week lockdown

Parbhani district in

Maharashtra's Marathwada region will remain under a lockdown from March 24 to March 31 in view of a surge in COVID-19 cases, a senior official said on Tuesday.

District Collector Deepak Mugalikar said the earlier measures like preventing people from stepping out of their houses in night didn't prove to be effective as the graph of new cases went up.

"The lockdown will come into force at 7 PM on Wednesday. It will be strictly implemented till March 31 with an objective to curb the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the district," he said.

Parbhani district added 1,132 new infections to its tally since March 1, taking the cumulative count to 5,843 as on March 22.

"The district administration had earlier prohibited people from stepping out of their homes in night, but the move failed to curb the cases," the collector said.

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Monday said that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was of the view that lockdown may become necessary in some cities if the new cases continue to climb.

Some members of the COVID-19 task force of Maharashtra had, however, opposed imposition of blanket lockdowns, saying such strategy cannot arrest the spread of virus transmission.