Telangana Lockdown Ends Today; All Covid-19 Curbs Lifted as Cases Dip

The Telangana government on Saturday announced that the lockdown in the state will be completely lifted from tomorrow and there will be no curbs in place. The state will also not remain under any night curfew restrictions from Sunday. The government also decided to reopen educational institutions from July 1.

The decision was taken at an emergency Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao keeping in view a significant drop in the COVID-19 positivity rate. The unlock comes as a measure to revive economic activities and push trade and business in the state.

The government further said the decision was taken after consulting experts and reviewing reports of medical authorities on the coronavirus situation, which has come under control. The Cabinet has directed the officials of all the departments to completely lift all the regulations imposed during the lockdown. The coronavirus situation in neighbouring states was also examined in the meeting.

“The state cabinet has decided to lift the lockdown completely. The number of corona cases in the state, the percentage of positivity has dropped significantly and the corona has come under complete control, the decision was taken after reviewing the reports provided by the medical authorities to lift the lock down to this extent,” the Chief Minister’s Office said in a Tweet.

The education department has been directed to reopen all categories of educational institutions from July 1 with students allowed to attend classes physically. In view of the decision to reopen educational institutions, the cabinet has asked the education department to prepare guidelines on different issues, including students’ attendance and online classes and release it at the earliest, it said.

The Cabinet sought support and cooperation from people for its decision, which was taken not to incur a loss to the livelihoods and for the benefit of public life.

However, the Cabinet made it clear that lifting of lockdown should not lead to negligent behaviour, people should wear masks, maintain physical distance and use sanitisers and other self-regulatory methods to curtail the spread of the virus and they should follow the guidelines prepared by the government.

The Cabinet also urged people to extend their full cooperation to curtail the spread of coronavirus once and for all.

Telangana on Friday reported 1,417 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the tally to 6,10,834, while the toll rose to 3,546 with 12 more fatalities. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 149, followed by Rangareddy (104) and Khammam (93) districts, a state government bulletin said, providing details as of 5.30 PM on Friday.

The number of recoveries outnumbered fresh cases with 1,897 people recovering from the virus, taking the cumulative number to 5,88,259. The number of active cases was 19,029, the bulletin said.

The case fatality rate in the state was 0.58 per cent against 1.3 per cent at the national level. The recovery rate in Telangana was 96.30 per cent, while it was 95.99 per cent in the country.

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