Night curfew in HP, cinema halls, gyms shut

Shimla: Worried over sudden rise in the Covid cases, Himachal Pradesh cabinet on Wednesday decided to impose night curfew from 10 PM to 5 AM, besides closing indoor sports complexes, cinema halls, multiplexes, stadia, swimming pools, gyms and langers – Community feasts in the State.

The cabinet also decided to allow 50 per cent gathering of the indoor capacity including marriage palaces and banquet halls. The restrictions are likely to adversely impact the inflow of the tourists in the state which has just started experiencing snowfall.

The night movement of the travelers including the tourists will be hit by new restrictions, feel hoteliers even as several states have already started imposing restrictions like night curfews and weekend shutdowns. A decision in this regard was taken in the meeting of the state cabinet which was chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.

State's health secretary Amitabh Awasthi made a detailed presentation before the cabinet showing a surge in the number of active cases from 348 to 847 in less than a week as the positivity rate has also shown a noticeable rise.

In the meeting, the cabinet resolved that the situation needs interventions to re-impose some restrictions and start mass outreach to make the people aware about the crisis.

There has also been a rise in the daily reporting of the cases in the state even as the state health department has not yet ramped-up testing. The state, till now has already reported 3,863 deaths, at least 65 percent of these happened during the second wave of the Covid 19 in 2021.