Dine-in arrangements in restaurants to be closed till March 31; Home-delivery and take-away to remain open: Kejriwal

New Delhi: In view of rising incidents of Corona cases, Delhi Chief Minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday announced several important decisions taken in the wake of COVID-19 in Delhi. He directed that dine-in arrangements in all the restaurants shall remain closed in Delhi till March 31. However, restaurants can continue home-deliveries and takeaways. All the educational institutions have also been directed to remain shut till March 31 for both teaching and non-teaching staff. He also said that non-essential public services will be disallowed from Friday.

Briefing the media in the Delhi Secretariat on Thursday, CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal said, “The Delhi government is taking all relevant measures to contain the spread of Coronavirus. We have had 10 cases in Delhi until now, with the unfortunate demise of one of the patients. Two patients have recovered and 1 patient has left for Singapore. We currently have 6 COVID-19 patients, most of them are recovering now.”

“We have a capacity of 768 beds to be installed in the quarantine facilities until now, with only 57 beds that are currently occupied. We have 550 isolation beds in the Delhi government hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, out of which 40 beds have been occupied with suspected Coronavirus cases. There are 95 beds available in the central government hospitals, out of which 67 beds have been occupied by suspected COVID-19 patients. We are also mapping the requirements of all the government and private hospitals in Delhi, and we will issue directions that all the machinery and ventilator facilities in these hospitals should be in working conditions,” he added.

CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal announced several important decisions taken today. All restaurants in Delhi shall remain closed till March 31st, wherein dine-in arrangement in all the restaurants will be shut down, but home-deliveries and take-aways will continue. All the educational institutions have also been shut down, including ITIs, Polytechnics, universities, colleges, and schools till 31st March for both teaching and non-teaching staff.

CM Arvind Kejriwal said, “We have also started stamping all the people who have been advised to self-quarantine themselves, owing to many of the patients who have been escaping the quarantine premises. We want to tell all these people who escape, that this is a very dangerous situation, and you can infect others who deliberately on non-deliberately come in your contact. If you do not abide by the Do’s and Dont’s, we will have to take strict measures against you, like filing an FIR or taking you into custody.”

“We are disinfecting buses, ISBTs, and metros daily. We were also disinfecting private public service vehicles, like autos, taxis, and cabs daily in two shifts from 10 AM-12 PM and 4:30 PM-6:30 PM at all our DTC and cluster bus depots for free. Owing to the long queues in the bus depots, we have decided to conduct this disinfection drive from 10 AM- 6 PM. We will also deploy more manpower at these bus depots if required. There has also been a huge decline in the interstate buses, especially from Jammu and Kashmir, and Nepal,” said CM Kejriwal.

CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the people to comprehend the intensity of the situation and avoid stepping out of their homes. He said, “Stay at home as much as you can and work from home. I want to appeal to the private sector institutions to provide work from home permits to their employees. Senior citizens are the most vulnerable of all, and I want to appeal to all the senior citizens to stay at home and avoid going out at all hours. Senior citizens need to be the most cautious of all.”

CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal also reduced to the number of people banned to gather for any event from 50 to 20. “We had recently announced that no social, political, cultural, family, sports and seminars gathering comprising of more than 50 people will be allowed in the city. We have brought down the number of people to 20,” he said.

Urging the public to remain cautious, he said, “I want to appeal to the people to not panic but to remain cautious and remain safe. The unfortunate incident of a man suspected of having the virus committing suicide from the 7th floor of the Safdarjung Hospital yesterday, tells us that we do not have to be scared of it even if we are tested positive. A lot of people have recovered from it, and the maximum is still in the recovery mode. It proves to be fatal only for the vulnerable. We have to be cautious that if we are the career of the virus, it should in no way infect other people. I hope that everyone remains safe.”

“There are only two ways through which the Coronavirus can be spread and escalate. First is if a person coughs or sneezes on another, the other person can get affected and to avoid that everyone should maintain a distance of atleast 1 meter from one another. Also, if someone sneezes or coughs on a hard surface and someone else touches that surface, he/she can get infected too. Second, if someone sneezes or coughs, covers his/her face with their hands, and shakes hands with another person, it will spread via contact and touching. On a hard surface, the virus stays for about 48 hours, and on a soft tissue surface, it stays for about 7-8 days. If a person gets infected, he/she will not notice the symptoms for 14 days,” he explained.

 

CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal appealed to the people to avoid hoarding. He said, “I want to request people to avoid panic buying. It will only worsen the situation. All the state governments and the central governments have worked in close coordination on the situation. There has been no community transmission until now, and if we continue to work like this, we will be able to control the situation very smoothly.”