The Punjab government on Wednesday issued a fresh set of directives to the police and civil administration to ensure that the people are not inconvenienced during the lockdown even as the State has reported two fresh cases of COVID-19 .
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The State’s Health department said two new cases of COVID-19 had been reported in Punjab on March 25 taking the total to 31. One patient is from the Hoshiarpur district is a close contact of a positive case. The other patient is from Ludhiana and doesn’t have a travel history. The source of the patient’s infection is being identified, it said.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh constituted a committee to oversee the procurement processes for all the virus-related items. The Chief Minister, in a statement, said he has directed the police and administrative officials to ensure that door-to-door delivery of essential services is maintained for the desired-prescribed period and it may, as far as possible, be further streamlined with the assistance of the e-commerce companies and service providers.
The Chief Minister has also ordered sanitisation of affected or vulnerable areas for which guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare should be followed in both towns and villages.
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There would continue to be no general relaxation in curfew. If it is decided by the district administration in due course to relax it in a selected area, due care must be taken to avoid overcrowding and to observe the prescribed social distancing, added the statement.
In the Union Territory Chandigarh, no fresh cases of COVID-19 had been reported on March 25. However, two women have been kept under isolation and their test results are awaited. Amid the lockdown, the UT administration was seen battling to provide essentials like vegetables and milk in many parts of the city. UT Advisor Manoj Parida took to Twitter saying, “Just as we were preparing four-hour sector-wise relaxation in curfew came orders for total lockdown, at night, we switched over to door delivery which is facing some teething problems. Please please bear till tomorrow.”
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He added: “Test of efficiency of Chandigarh administration is not how much convenience we provided to people during curfew, but how many death or new cases we prevented. Now citizens may be angry with us later they will thank us for strictness.”
