DDMA issues order to lift all Covid-19 curbs in Delhi from Monday

The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Saturday issued an order notifying the decisions taken in its meeting a day earlier, lifting all Covid-19 curbs in the national capital, including the night curfew, 50% seating cap on restaurants, bars and cinema halls, as well as paving the way for schools to completely shift to in-person classes from April 1.

The health and family welfare department also issued an order reducing the fine for not wearing masks in public places from ₹2,000 to ₹500 from Monday. It, however, stressed that people will still have to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour, including masking and distancing.

Meanwhile, the DDMA order also said that the hybrid mode (online and offline) of learning and consent from parents will be followed for students up to class 9 and class 11, only till March 31. The order leaves out classes 10 and 12, which means that parental consent from board class students will no longer be valid.

The DDMA reviewed the prevailing Covid-19 situation in the Capital on Friday and decided that all schools in Delhi will return to in-person classes from April 1, and all other Covid-19 curbs in the city will be lifted due to the sustained dip in the daily infection count and test positivity rate.

Schools have been demanding that they be allowed to return to offline classes in earnest, and traders have expressed their discontent, arguing that the curbs were disproportionate to the city’s Covid-19 caseload.

The Union home ministry recently directed states and Union territories to lift curbs on a risk assessment-based approach. “Accordingly, the Covid-19 situation in Delhi has been reviewed in the DDMA meeting... and it was observed that cases and positivity rate have declined significantly. Also, bed occupancy in hospitals is low and the situation has vastly improved. Therefore, it has been decided to remove all restrictions in Delhi,” the DDMA order said.

The order, however, emphasised that while allowing all such activities, the wearing of masks, maintaining social distancing, hand hygiene and proper ventilation in closed spaces should be enforced at all places. It has directed the authorities to focus on strategic areas of intervention such as containment zones and focus on test, track, surveillance, clinical management and vaccination as well as strict compliance of Covid-appropriate behaviour.

It also asked the authorities concerned to take action against people who flout the guidelines.

Delhi’s Covid-19 caseload has been on a downward spiral for weeks now, as the city’s fifth wave of infections, fuelled by the Omicron variant of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, began to ease towards the end of January. The city added 440 cases on Saturday at a test positivity rate of 0.83%.

Dr Jugal Kishore, head of the department of community medicine at the Safdarjung Hospital, said that DDMA’s move to lift all restrictions is a welcome step because the coronavirus transmission is very low and the positivity rate is now less than 1%.

“It will restore normalcy and economic activities will revive. Similarly, with the reopening of schools and colleges, academic losses will also be minimised. But people should remain cautious. We need to have in-depth deliberations on the success and failure of the interventions that arose due to the pandemic. We must allocate more funds for healthcare and be prepared for future epidemics and pandemics,” Dr Kishore added.