Top 10 coronavirus updates: In lockdown 4.0, inter-state travel allowed, states to mark zones
Here are the biggest Covid-19 developments of the day.
- The Centre on Sunday directed states to continue lockdown measures till May 31. It permitted interstate and intrastate movement of buses and passenger vehicles in red zones, in addition to orange and green zones. The ministry also yielded to a key demand of states – to allow them to define red, orange, green and buffer zones.
- India has reported 90,927 cases of coronavirus so far, including 2,872 deaths, according to the Union health ministry.
- The Centre, in the fifth and final tranche of its Rs 20 lakh crore economic package, on Sunday increased the borrowing limit of the states from 3% to 5% and announced that Rs 40,000 crore will be spent additionally under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made seven announcements as part of a slew of measures to kickstart the economy.
- Maharashtra, which is the worst affected state in the country, recorded 2,347 new positive cases and 63 deaths in a day. This took the state’s total to 33,053 positive cases and 1,198 deaths. The state’s capital Mumbai reported a record 1,571 cases and 38 deaths in a day, taking the city’s tally rises to 19,967 and the toll to 734.
- Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday that migrant workers in the city were the responsibility of the state government and assured labourers that they will not be abandoned to their fate amid the nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
- A 24-year-old migrant worker died in Shivpuri district in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday after being dumped out of a truck carrying migrants from Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh. A photograph of the worker’s friend cradling him in his lap went viral on social media. Early on May 14, Amrit Kumar and his friend, Mohammad Saiyub, paid Rs 4,000 each to get on a truck carrying 60 others from Surat in Gujarat to Basti district in Uttar Pradesh. Around 2 pm on Friday, Kumar developed severe breathing problems and his condition deteriorated rapidly, spreading panic among the other passengers, who feared he had coronavirus.
- Delhi Congress Chief Anil Kumar Chaudhary on Sunday said that the police had detained him at his residence. Chaudhary alleged that he was detained for helping migrant workers amid a nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus.
- The police in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh on Saturday roughed up a doctor, tied his hands and dragged him on the road for allegedly creating nuisance and abusing the state government in an inebriated condition. The officers tied Dr Sudhakar’s hands and bundled him into an autorickshaw before taking him to the police station.
- Gujarat’s Ahmedabad Civil Hospital has come under the scanner after a Covid-19 patient admitted there was found dead at a bus stop 10 km away on May 15. The patient’s family was forced to carry the body to a crematorium themselves, without any protective gear, and claims they have not been given any information on how the body reached the bus stop.
- Globally, Covid-19 has infected more than 46 lakh people and claimed over 3.12 lakh lives, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.