NEW DELHI: The Indian capital on Tuesday imposed an immediate night curfew one day after the nation posted a record coronavirus surge, with financial hub Mumbai also introducing similar restrictions.
Alarm has grown since India passed more than 100,000 new cases in a single day for the first time on Monday.
New Delhi, home to 25 million people, and other major cities have all ordered a clampdown on public movement.
The Delhi regional government said the “sudden increase in Covid-19 cases” and “high positivity rate” meant a night curfew was needed.
The ban will be in place each night from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am through the end of April, with only essential services or people travelling to and from vaccination centres allowed on the streets.
After the start of the curfew late Tuesday, shops and street vendors that would usually be open were closed, but there was still a regular amount of night traffic on some roads.
India, which has the world’s third-highest number of infections after the United States and Brazil, has reported almost 12.7 million cases and more than 165,000 deaths.
Single-day infections have been rising since early February, when they fell to below 9,000.
The country has recorded more than 549,000 cases in the last seven days — an increase of 40 percent compared to the previous week, according to data compiled by AFP.
Brazil recorded just under 440,000 cases and the United States reported just over 453,000, but both with a decreasing trend from the previous week.
India’s health ministry said Tuesday that more than 83 million vaccination shots have been administered as part of an ambitious drive to inoculate 300 million by the end of July.
Delhi has meanwhile ordered one-third of all its vaccination sites at government hospitals to open around-the-clock to speed up the pace of inoculation.
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