Bengal observing complete lockdown for second consecutive day to break pandemic chain

Life has come to a standstill with the streets wearing a deserted look, shops downing shutters, banks remaining closed, flights remaining suspended and vehicles going off the roads.

Today is the seventh day of total lockdown and fourth this month after July 23, 25, 29, August 05, 08 and 20.

The state will witness complete lockdown again on August 27 and 31.

However, essential services have been exempted from the purview of lockdown.

Medical outlets will remain open during the lockdown, while all other shops will be closed for two days a week across the state.

All the government and private offices, commercial establishments will also be shut.

All public and private transport will go off the roads.

However, Petrol pumps are allowed to function on the days of complete lockdown.

The airport has already extended the suspension of incoming flights to Kolkata from six metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Nagpur and Ahmedabad with high prevalence of COVID-19 cases till August 31.

Meanwhile, the Covid-19 toll in Bengal rose to 2,634 with the death of 53 persons on Thursday, while the tally touched 1,29,119 with 3,197 new confirmed cases.

According to the latest State Government Health bulletin, the active cases accounted for 27,696, while the number of discharged stood at 98,789.

The percentage of discharged rose to 76.51 per cent.

Total number of samples tested as on Thursday stood at 14,51,615 with 35,059 tested in the past 24 hours.

While the city recorded the highest number of 1132 deaths so far, surrounding districts of North 24 Parganas and Howrah came second and third respectively with 610 and 316 fatalities.

While another contiguous district of South 24 Parganas accounted for 152 deaths, the toll in Hooghly stood at 97, Darjeeling 56, Paschim and Purba Midnapore 27 and 40 respectively, Malda 25, Murshidabad 30 and Nadia 27, Paschim Bardhaman 23, Purba Bardhaman 13, Jalpaiguri 25, Uttar Dinajpur 15, Dakshin Dinajpur 21, Birbhum 10, Alipurduar 6, Kalimpong 1, Cooch Behar 2, Purulia 1, Jhargram 2 and Bankura 0.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Health Chandrima Bhattacharyya in a tweet said, “A 110-bed COVID unit at NRS Medical College and Hospital has been set up.”