India to go under total virus lockdown, says PM Modi
NEW DELHI, India — India's 1.3 billion people will go under "total lockdown" for 21 days to combat the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday, sparking panic buying.
"From 12 midnight today (1830 GMT Tuesday), the entire country will be in lockdown, total lockdown," Modi said in a national television address to the world's second most-populous nation.
"To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family... every street, every neighbourhood is being put under lockdown."
India has lagged behind other nations in the number of COVID-19 cases, but there has been a sharp increase in recent days to 519 infections, including 10 deaths, according to the government.
A raft of lockdown measures had already been brought in by individual states and territories — including sealing borders and restricting movement to only essential services — in a bid to prevent an explosion of cases that could overwhelm the fragile public health system.
Modi warned that Indians had to observe the lockdown if they wanted to stop the spread of the deadly virus.
"This is a curfew... We will have to pay economic cost of this, but to save every family member, this is the responsibility of everyone — the biggest priority," the prime minister added.
"If these 21 days are not managed, the country and your family will go back 21 years... I am not saying this as your prime minister, I am saying it as your fellow citizen, family member."
Under the order, people could face up to two years in jail and an unspecified financial penalty if they flout the rules.
'Don't panic'
Within minutes of Modi's speech announcing the world's largest lockdown, AFP reporters witnessed people rushing to stores to buy groceries.
In India's capital New Delhi, some people in their pyjamas ran towards nearby shops despite heavy rain to stock up, while in the financial capital Mumbai, long lines of masked people formed outside pharmacies and supermarkets.
In Ghaziabad, a city in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh, police patrolled streets and used loud megaphones to tell residents to stay indoors.
Following his speech, Modi tweeted: "THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO PANIC."
My fellow citizens,
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 24, 2020
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO PANIC.
Essential commodities, medicines etc. would be available. Centre and various state governments will work in close coordination to ensure this.
Together, we will fight COVID-19 and create a healthier India.
Jai Hind!
"Essential commodities, medicines etc. would be available. Centre and various state governments will work in close coordination to ensure this," he added.
Local media reported that state leaders would announce the timings of when people could buy essential items.
"This lockdown is needed," virologist Shahid Jameel of biomedical research charity Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance told AFP after the announcement. "If this is not done now we would be looking at six to eight weeks later, with many more deaths."
"But it's going to be very hard on the poor and vulnerable. I hope there is a plan in place. The devil is always in the details," he added.
All social, political, sports, entertainment, academic, cultural and religious gatherings would be banned, the order said.
All transport services including air, rail and road, would be suspended. A maximum of 20 people would be allowed to attend a funeral.
People working in essential services such as hospitals, police and media were exempted from the stay-at-home order, authorities added.
E-commerce giant Amazon, which has a big presence in India, said in a statement on its website that it would only sell "high priority" products to customers.
The South Asian nation has already banned incoming international flights, grounded domestic flights and shut sea and river ports.
Indian Railways — one of the world's biggest networks carrying more than 20 million passengers daily — has cancelled all services except suburban and goods trains.
The country was the hardest hit by the 1918 Spanish flu in terms of death, suffering 18 million fatalities or about six percent of the total population, according to a study by historians Niall Johnson and Jurgen Muller, published in 1998.
The epidemic killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, according to the same researchers. — with Aishwarya Kumar and Vishal Manve in Mumbai
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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