Even as the country moves towards unlocking its nationwide Coronavirus lockdown, coming into effect from June 8, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday that hotels and banquet halls will remain closed in Delhi, while the borders of the national capital will be opened from Monday.
“All restaurants, malls and places of worship to open in the national capital from tomorrow,” CM Kejriwal said today at a press conference. He added that a call on opening up the banquet halls will be taken later on.
According to the Centre’s guidelines for Unlock in phase I, religious places and places of worship for public, hotels, restaurants and other hospitality services; and shopping malls will be permitted to open from June 8, 2020.
CM Kejriwal announced the opening of Delhi’s borders from tomorrow.
Chief Minister said that by the month end the city would need 15,000 beds. So for now Delhi hospitals will be available for the residents of the city only, while Central hospitals will remain open for all.
He urged the people of the national capital to follow all the norms and dos and dont’s of social distancing and other guidelines even during the lockdown relaxations. “Relaxations do not mean that coronavirus disease has ended,” said Kejriwal.
“You are not doing anyone a favour by wearing mask, it’s for your own safety. I am still getting reports that people are going out without masks,” he added.
CM Kejriwal also asked the senior citizens to take extra care. He said, “As a precautionary measure, the elderly people should have minimum interaction with their family members and others, especially children, as senior citizens are most vulnerable to coronavirus.” And added that they try should try remain in a single room of their houses.
Earlier on Saturday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had issued a stern warning to private hospitals on the alleged denial of admission to coronavirus patients and said that the Delhi government would deploy health officials at such hospitals to ensure availability of beds to each and every Covid-19 patient.
“Some hospitals are denying admission to COVID-19 patients. I am warning those who think they will be able to do black-marketing of beds using the influence of their protectors from other parties, you will not be spared,” the chief minister said at a press briefing on the Coronavirus situation in the national capital.
He had said the government had launched the ‘Delhi Corona’ app to stop black marketing of beds. “We thought of making the information about the number of beds and ventilators in hospitals transparent. But now, there is an uproar over it as if we committed a crime,” Kejriwal said.
Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain earlier on Friday said the issue was that some hospitals are “not updating” the data on the Delhi government’s coronavirus tracking application on time or “misrepresenting actual data” when patients call.
COVID-19 tally in the city has reached to 27654 and the number of deaths due to the disease jumped to 761.
On May 30, the Centre took an exit step from the 68-day nationwide lockdown, declaring that the restrictions will be limited only to containment zones up to June 30 and that the prohibited activities will be opened in a phased manner in areas outside these zones, allowing restaurants, malls, religious places and education sectors to open in a phased manner.
Lockdown 5.0 or Unlock has kicked in with some major relaxations compared to the previous phase of the lockdown including travelling between borders of states.