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India Reimposes Lockdown in Bengaluru Amid COVID-19 Surge


Tue 14 Jul 2020 | 04:54 PM
NaDa Mustafa

India has decided on Tuesday to reimpose a coronavirus lockdown in its high-tech hub of Bengaluru for a week after a surge of COVID-19 infections, threatening to derail government efforts to revive a stuttering economy.

Places of worship, public transport, government offices, and most shops will close again from the evening, and people will be confined to their homes, only allowed out for essential needs.

Schools, colleges and restaurants will remain shut, according to authorities.

Bengaluru, home to some of the world’s biggest IT firms such as Infosys, had only about 1,000 coronavirus cases in mid-June and was seen to have fared better than other parts of India in terms of testing and contact tracing, according to Reuters.

But infections had grown to nearly 20,000 by Monday, something health experts blamed on the lifting of restrictions in June when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, worried about the economy, ended a nationwide lockdown that had thrown millions of people out of work.

Bengaluru began seeing a surge in infections from late June as both testing and the movement of people picked up, Hephsiba Korlapati, a senior official in the city’s COVID-19 response team, told Reuters.