Andhra Pradesh: Partial lockdown comes into force

Lockdown in Andhra Pradesh: Calling it the fear of Andhra Pradesh variant of the novel coronavirus N440K which has spread to Maharashtra, Karnataka and even Tamil Nadu, people for a change showed positive response to the State-wide partial lockdown announced by the State Government from Wednesday noon. The partial lockdown would be in force till May 18.

All activities in the State came to a standstill. All commercial establishments, shops, shopping malls, cinema halls, banks, restaurants and hotels were closed. The main public transport, the APSRTC, suspended all long-distance services in the State. Before noon and all buses were sent back to depots. The RTC has decided to operate only short-distance services.

All reservations made by the passengers were cancelled. All bus depots wore a deserted look. People returned home before noon to comply with orders of the government. The impact of the lockdown was clearly visible in Vijayawada, Guntur, Vizag, Kakinada, Tirupati, Nellore, Ongole, Kurnool, Kadapa, Anantapur and other cities and towns across the State. People recalled the national lockdown that was imposed in the country in March 2020.

People seem to have realised the seriousness of the situation now after there has been a steep surge in cases and AP has become among the States where the corona virus cases graph has been rising steeply.

All shops voluntarily pulled down the shutters ahead of the noon deadline even before the police started patrolling.

People whom The Hans India contacted expressed the view that the lockdown is the ultimate option to break the Covid chain. The Covid pandemic situation is deteriorating day by day and total cases per day crossed from 10,000 to 20,000 in less than two weeks prompting the Government to take the decision to impose lockdown. Maharashtra and Karnataka are already implementing partial lockdown to break the chain of cases.

Earlier, the State Government had imposed curfew from 9 pm to 5 am. But, the night curfew had no effect and the number of Covid-19 cases continued to surge during the last one week. Hospitals are already full with thousands of Covid-19 patients admitted to the government and private hospitals and Covid care centres in the State. Though the government has been getting oxygen from neighbouring States, still many people are suffering on account of shortage of beds and oxygen supply.

The police has started keeping vigil at the Inter-state check posts on Krishna district border with Telangana near Garikapadu. Similar vigil is being maintained in the border districts of Guntur, Nellore and Srikakulam. All vehicles are being checked before people are allowed to cross the border and that too if the authorities are convinced that the reason was of urgent nature.