With a week left for the lapse of lockdown 4.0, the Himachal Pradesh government on Monday has made provisions to extend the lockdown in some parts of the state for another five weeks till June 30.
The BJP government led by Jai Ram Thakur has released an order saying that the lockdown can continue till June 30 in all 12 districts of the state, if needed. It is upto the district administration whether they feel the requirement to extend it or not.
As of now, the lockdown has been extended in Hamirpur and Solan district of the state.
Himachal Pradesh has recorded 214 cases of the deadly coronavirus out of which 63 patients recovered and five died.
Out of the 12 districts, Hamirpur has over one-fourth of the total cases of coronavirus.
Lockdown in the hill state is coming at a time when the other states are easing the lockdown. Centre has allowed the flights movement and today many flights from different states including highly infected Maharashtra and Delhi took off.
In April, the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister had supported the extension of lockdown during the video call with the Prime Minister.
However, he had also been supportive of the re-opening of the economic activities in the state, especially in green zones.
State had also launched Active Case Finding or ACF campaign to screen the entire population of the state for any influenza like illness (ILI) symptoms.
This initiative was even praised by the Prime Minister.
The first nationwide lockdown which was imposed on March 24 was extended in four phases and is set to lapse on May 31. The states and centre came up with some relaxations in each phase of the lockdown. This time with the resuming of flight services and an announcement of running 200 special trains has make it very uncertain to predict the fifth version of lockdown after May 31.