THE government of Delhi on Wednesday (22) banned all gatherings to celebrate Christmas and New Year, two big year-end events, as Omicron cases rise steadily across the Indian capital.
Cultural events were also prohibited on a day when Delhi recorded 125 new cases, the highest in six months.
India’s NDTV news channel said that the officials were yet to define the gatherings’ legal limits.
While all social, political, entertainment, cultural, religious and other festival-related gatherings have been banned, it was also instructed that banquet halls cannot function except for marriages, conferences, meetings and exhibitions. Even those come with riders.
The authorities have identified potential Covid superspreaders before the twin celebrations a week apart.
One order of Delhi Disaster Management Authority said, “All district magistrates shall conduct an intensive survey of the entire area falling under their jurisdiction and identify those pockets, colonies markets, and crowded places which have the potential of becoming superspreaders of Coronavirus and its Omicron variant.”
Schools and colleges have been permitted to operate if they strictly comply with the standard operating procedure. Restaurants and bars will be allowed to operate at half the capacity. Cinema and theatre halls and multiplexes can operate with full capacity but auditoriums and assembly venues can operate only with 50 per cent capacity, the NDTV report added.
The Delhi Metro has been allowed to run at 100 per cent capacity with up to 30 passengers allowed to stand in a compartment. Buses can also run with 100 per cent capacity with standing passengers allowed up to 50 per cent of the seating capacity.
Weddings and funerals are not allowed to see more than 200 people.
India has seen a total of 213 cases of the Omicron variant which has posed a new threat to health systems across the world.
The Narendra Modi government has asked the states to set up “war rooms” and bring back curbs, including night curfews to contain the spread. It also listed a series of preventive and containment measures that included extensive testing and regulation of gatherings.
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