India’s Nagpur City To Be Placed Under 7-day Complete Lockdown

The city of Nagpur in western India will be placed under a week-long complete lockdown following the sudden spike of novel coronavirus cases. The lockdown is said to take place from March 15 - 21.

BBC.com recently reported that the state where Nagpur is located has always been the hotspot of COVID-19 in India. The state called Maharashtra has the highest number of confirmed and active cases in the said country.

With regards to the total number of confirmed cases in India, reports say that there are already more than 11 million as of this writing. More than 150 thousand people have also succumbed to the disease.

Despite the upcoming imposition of the 7-day complete lockdown, authorities say that essential services will remain open during the said period. Livemint.com enumerated grocery stores and hospitals as those that are allowed to continue operation.

"Complete lockdown to remain imposed in Nagpur City Police Commissionerate area from March 15 to March 21," Nitin Raut, the guardian minister of Nagpur, quipped.

Several infectious disease experts believe that the new variant of COVID-19 is the reason why there is a sudden surge in the number of cases in the said city.

Nagpur alone is tallying around 1 thousand cases of COVID-19 per day. It is the second city in Maharashtra in terms of active cases, which is 13,800. The district of Pune is still on top with more than 20 thousand active cases.

Meanwhile, the vaccination drive in India is still on-going. There are reportedly 20 million people who have received the first dose of the vaccine. They will be inoculated with the second dose a few weeks from now.

With the continuous spike of COVID-19 cases in India and other parts of the world, people are advised to always follow safety protocols like wearing face masks and observing physical distancing, especially in crowded places.