New Delhi: In the wake of the rising cases of coronavirus, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday night issued fresh guidelines to all the states and UTs and asked them to strictly implement containment measures across districts with a high number of COVID-19 cases to check the spread of the viral disease. The Issuance of the guidelines has also ruled out nationwide lockdown as the MHA did not mention anything about the imposition of a nationwide lockdown anywhere in the country in the fresh guidelines issued in view of the pandemic for May.
“In an order issued today, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directed all States and Union Territories (UTs) to consider the containment measures, as had been conveyed in the advisory of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), dated 25.4.2021, for immediate implementation based on the assessment of the situation. It asked the States and UTs to implement the necessary containment measures, under the relevant provisions of the Disaster Management (DM) Act, 2005,” MHA said in its guidelines.
The fresh guidelines for COVID-19 management came amid a sudden spike in the number of cases and a shortage of beds, ICUs and oxygen in some parts of the country like Delhi.
In the guidelines, the MHA asked the states to identify the districts where either the COVID positivity rate was more than 10 per cent or the bed occupancy was over 60 per cent in the last one week. The districts fulfilling any of the above two criteria should be considered for intensive and local containment measures.
The implementation framework for community containment and large containment areas, as advised by the health ministry, has also been enclosed with the MHA order.
