The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in a statement released a few moments ago, has announced the extension of lockdown in the country for another two weeks.
The lockdown was supposed to end on May 3rd
After the first phase of lockdown had ended on April 14th, PM Narendra Modi had arrived in front of the country and announced the extension of lockdown until May 3rd. With the stipulated date closing by, he was expected to appear again in front of the country. However, the MHA has itself released a notification announcing the extension of the lockdown.
Further details in the notification
Under the Disaster Management Act of 2005, the Ministry of Home Affairs has extended the nationwide lockdown beyond May 4th until May 17th. In the same notification, MHA released new guidelines to be followed based on the risk profiling of the country into red, green and orange zones. A few relaxations would be made in the green zones, as announced by the ministry.
The definition of each zones also found mention in the notification. While Green Zones will be the districts with no confirmed cases in the last 21 days, Red Zones will be decided based on the number of active cases, doubling rate and the extent of testing done. The districts which neither fall in the Red or Green Zones will be given the Orange Zone tag.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will release the classification on a weekly basis. It has also been announced that the State Governments may classify a Green or Orange Zone as a Red Zone but they will not be allowed to lower the classification.
BIG BREAKING: Lockdown has been extended by another Two weeks, till May 17 #Lockdown3 #Corona #Covid19 @aajtak
— Vikrant Gupta (@vikrantgupta73) May 1, 2020
Source: MHA
