In his much-awaited address to the nation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that the country will remain in coronavirus lockdown for another 19 days till May 3 as the country’s corona tally crossed the 10,000 mark with around 339 deaths reported.
The Prime Minister said the government had decided to enforce strict lockdown till April 20 followed by graded relaxations. The government may ease curbs post April 20 in non-hotspot areas. “It all depends on the corona cases in the states. Any relaxations in the states will be closely monitored,” the PM said. With the complete lockdown enforcement by the central government till April 20, the Jagan-led government cannot enforce lockdown only in red zones. The lockdown in Andhra Pradesh has to be strictly followed even in orange and green zones till April 20 and the central government will closely monitor the spread of covid-19 in all the states till April 20 and if there are no new hotspots identified there could be some relaxations.
In a national address on Tuesday, he said that only by respecting the confinement rules would the battle against Covid-19 be won. Thanking the people for cooperating with the government’s complete lockdown so far, he appealed to the people to stay at home and keep social distancing. He said lockdown is the only answer at the moment and social distancing will help stop the spread of virus. “Foreign countries could not gauge the seriousness of the problem which led to the spread of this disease. However, India sensed the gravity of the problem even before the country reported a single case. The government had immediately cancelled all the international flights. As the country reported 100 cases of corona, the government had made 14-day isolation mandatory. “The government took the tough decision of complete lockdown when the country reported 550 cases,” Modi said in his address to the nation.
Prime Minister observed that the combined effort of the Centre and the states have helped reduce the impact of corona virus but since the situation is rapidly evolving, constant vigilance is paramount. He emphasized the criticality of coming three to four weeks for determining the impact of the steps taken till now to contain the virus, adding that teamwork is the key to facing the challenge. “Your sacrifice has helped us fight this battle. You went through the pain to fight this. Indians made a lot of sacrifice even in this season of festivals. The spirit should continue for some more weeks.
He asked people to follow the 7 simple do’s and don’t s – “Look after the elderly in your house, take measures to boost immunity, don’t cross lockdown Lakshmana Rekha, download ‘Aarogya Setu’ app, don’t lay off and show compassion to employees, respect and honour covid warriors such as doctors, nurses, safai karamcharis and the police, help the needy. These are the ways to win this battle against the virus. Let us do this together till May 3. Stay where you are, safe and healthy,” he said
The extension of complete lockdown was given as states including Telangana favoured extension. In video interaction with Prime Minister Modi, more than 10 states favoured the extension of the lockdown barring Jagan Mohan Reddy who proposed lockdown in Andhra Pradesh only in red zones. He was of the view that the complete lockdown should be enforced only in areas declared as hotpsots by the state government. “The Andhra Pradesh government has put in place containment cluster strategy. Around 141containment clusters were declared as hotspots. He said in a total of 676 mandals, the state government had identified 81 mandals as red zones and orange zones. “Of the 81 mandals, 37 were declared as red zones and 44 as oranges zones. In my opinion, the lockdown should be enforced in the red zones. The restrictions should continue in public gatherings like malls, cinema halls, places of worship, schools.”
Jagan said while the full economic impact on the state was yet to be assessed, he said several sectors are already feeling the pain, especially the farm sector which is the mainstay in Andhra Pradesh. Jagan said while the government should initiate very bold steps, “we have to ensure the wheel of economy keeps moving if not in full speed at least to the level of sustenance of the people. I would like to emphasize the impact of lockdown on the state particularly on the common man. Agriculture sector is the mainstay of our economy constituting more than 35 per cent of the GSDP and employing more than 62 per cent of workforce in our state. Interstate movement of agriculture commodities has come to an abysmal low with less than 25 per cent of the trucks on the roads due to fear of stoppage in between. There is very little storage space available for agriculture commodities within the state and our godowns,” he had noted.
