Big lockdown news for Uttar Pradesh! Yogi Adityanath government takes this decision

Taking a big decision, Yogi Adityanath-led UP government has announced a complete lockdown on weekends to check COVID-19 spread. To stop the spread of COVID-19 infection, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to implement strict lockdown across the state on weekends, a senior official said on Sunday, as per a report in PTI.

"The lockdown on weekends will be implemented from the coming Saturday and Sunday especially in the crowded areas. The markets and offices will remain closed on these days. However, the banks will remain open," Additional Chief Secretary (Home and Information) Awanish Awasthi told PTI. "This is being done basically to stop the spread of infection through unwanted physical movement. Economic activities will, however, not suffer," he added.'The lockdown will remain effective in both urban and rural areas of the state. "It (lockdown) will be in place for the month of July at least," Awasthi said. 

Meanwhile, India added a record 28,637 cases of coronavirus infection on Sunday pushing the country's COVID-19 tally to 8,49,553, while the death toll climbed to 22,674 with 551 people succumbing to the disease in a day, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The number of recoveries stands at 5,34,620, while there are 2,92,258 active cases of coronavirus infection presently in the country, the updated data at 8 am showed. "Thus, around 62.93 per cent of patients have recovered so far," an official said. The total number of confirmed cases include foreigners.

This was the third consecutive day that COVID-19 cases in the country have increased by more than 26,000.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 1,15,87,153 samples have been tested up to July 11 with 2,80,151 samples being tested on Saturday.