Arvind Kejriwal to review COVID-19 situation in Delhi today

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will hold a high-level review meeting today amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the national capital after it witnessed the largest single-day cases spike on Monday in the last six months. The meeting is scheduled to be held at noon at the Delhi Secretariat.

The implementation of the Graded Response Action Plan is likely to be the top agenda of the meeting. With Delhi reporting the highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases in six months, a declaration of Yellow Alert with its host of restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) is likely to come into effect.

The COVID positivity rate surpassed 0.5 per cent for the second consecutive day in the national capital and according to GRAP, this is the scale of implementing a yellow alert. The national capital on Monday reported 331 fresh COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day spike since the last six months. On June 6, Delhi had reported 331 cases.

In the meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) held on July 9, 2021, the Delhi government approved GRAP. Accordingly, keeping in mind the third COVID-19 wave, four alerts were determined namely, yellow alert, amber alert, orange alert and red alert. In view of the current situation of COVID-19, the yellow alert is likely to be implemented by the Delhi Government and DDMA, sources said.

There are many restrictions on the implementation of yellow alert in Delhi. Notably, the Delhi government has already imposed a night curfew effective from Monday. The duration is from 11 pm to 5 am.

But apart from this, schools, colleges, educational institutions, and coaching institutes can be closed under yellow alert. At the same time, there is a provision under this that shops and malls with non-essential services or goods will open from 10 am to 8 pm under the odd-even rule.