Chandigarh residents advised to wear masks as COVID cases rise

Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], April 18 (ANI): Considering the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in some of the States and UTs, all the residents of Chandigarh have been advised to wear face masks at crowded places, the Health Department of the Union Territory informed on Monday.
An official communique by the department said, "Wearing of masks is needed during whole journey in the public transport (buses, trains, aircraft and taxi etc); during stay inside cinema halls, shopping malls and departmental stores etc; during stay inside classrooms, office-rooms, indoor gatherings."
On April 5, amid a decline in COVID-19, the Chandigarh administration lifted all the remaining COVID-19 restrictions including the wearing of masks in public places.
After a steady decline in new COVID cases for the past several weeks following the third surge in January-February this year mainly due to the Omicron variant, India's daily COVID infections witnessed a jump of 89.8 per cent on Monday from yesterday's 1,150 cases and reported 2,183 fresh cases in the last 24 hours.
According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the daily case positivity rate also saw a sudden rise from 0.31 per cent (on Sunday) to 0.83 per cent (on Monday). The weekly positivity rate saw an uptick from 0.27 per cent (on Sunday) to 0.32 (on Monday).
However, with the recovery of 1,985 COVID patients in the last 24 hours, the active cases saw a minor decline to 11,542 which account for 0.03 per cent of the total cases.
The total number of recoveries in the country since the onset of the pandemic stands at 4,25,10,773. The recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent. The death toll due to COVID-19 climbed to 5,21,965.
As many as 2,61,440 COVID samples were tested in the country during this period taking the total number of samples tested till date to 83.21 crore.
Under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive, 2,66,459 COVID vaccines were administered during the period. The total number of vaccines administered so far jumped to 1,86,54,94,355. (ANI)