From now onwards, J&K to have restrictions from Friday afternoon till Monday morning every week

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JAMMU, JANUARY 23: From now onwards, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will have weekly restrictions on non-essential movement from Friday 2 pm till Monday 6 am.

These restrictions shall continue to remain in force till further orders, it said, adding the decision came after a detailed review of Covid situation by Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta at a meeting attended by Additional Chief Secretaries of the departments of Finance, Health & Medical Education, Principal Secretaries of Home and Public Works Department, besides senior civil and police officers in both the divisions and all the districts.

Following surge in Covid cases, the administration on Thursday last extended restrictions by 15 hours beginning Friday afternoon which were earlier observed only on Saturdays and Sundays.

The decision came at a meeting of the UT’s COVID Task Force chaired by Chief Secretary Dr Arun Kumar Mehta on late Thursday night to review rising Covid cases in Jammu and Kashmir.

“To curb the unnecessary gatherings and leisure outings during the third wave peak in the Union territory, the COVID Task Force decided to curb the non-essential movement of people from 2:00 pm on Friday till 6:00 am on Monday,” an official statement issued here said. 

The meeting was attended by ACS Finance, ACS Health & Medical Education, Principal Secretary Home and Principal Secretary Public Works Department, Divisional Commissioners of both Kashmir and Jammu, besides senior civil and police officers in all the districts. 

Earlier, the administration had imposed restrictions on non-essential movement only on Saturdays and Sundays.

Meanwhile, the UT on Sunday reported 6253 new cases of COVID-19, raising the total number of active positive cases to 42,866. However, on January 1, the UT had 1397 active positive cases including  169 COVID reported during the past 24 hours.