Today, April 2, India has recorded the highest single-day spike in COVID19 cases. The country has registered 81,466 new cases in the last 24 hours. Additionally, 469 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. At 249, Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties. It is followed by Punjab with 58 deaths.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 43,183. It is followed by Chhattisgarh with 4,617 while Karnataka reported 4,234 new cases.

Five states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, and Punjab cumulatively account for 77.91 per cent of the total active cases in the country, reads a press release by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. 

Maharashtra alone accounts for nearly 60 per cent of the total active caseload of the country. Almost all the states and Union Territories (UTs) are reporting a rise in corona cases, which is being termed as the ‘second wave’ of COVID19 in India.

To respond to this crisis, state governments have announced several measures, including partial lockdowns. Here are the details:

1. Today, Saurabh Rao, divisional commissioner of Pune in Maharashtra, announced bars, hotels, restaurants will remain closed for seven days. Only home delivery will be allowed. No public function, except funerals and weddings will be allowed; maximum 20 people in funerals and 50 in weddings are allowed. Order to come into effect from tomorrow, April 3.
2. A 12-hour night curfew from 6 pm to 6 am in Pune from tomorrow, 3rd April. Religious places will be completely closed for the next 7 days.
3. Mumbai’s Mayor Kishori Pednekar, today said that due to the surge in COVID cases, a shortage of beds and ventilators is being seen. Nobody wants lockdown but keeping in mind the manner in which cases are rising and creating pressure on the health infrastructure, some strict measures will have to be taken, she said. 
4. Night curfew from 8:00 pm to 7:00 am (next day) has been imposed across Maharashtra from March 28. Lockdown was imposed in Nanded from March 25 to April 4. A complete lockdown was imposed in the Beed district from March 26 to April 4.
5. Today, Sarveshwar Bhure, collector of Durg district announced a complete lockdown in the district for nine days from April 6 to April 14.  
6. Bhupesh Baghel, the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, has directed district collectors to decide on imposing lockdowns in their respective regions as per the local situation.
7. Physical classes for standard 6-9 in Bengaluru Urban have been suspended until further orders, said S Suresh Kumar, minister, primary & secondary education, Karnataka.
8. Uttar Pradesh government has extended the epidemic control act till June 30 this year. It has also ordered closing of schools, both government and private, for students of class 1-8 till April 11.
9. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) suspended the services of the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Central-Ahmedabad Tejas Express for a month.
10. Captain Amarinder Singh, the chief minister, Punjab, imposed strict restrictions amid increasing cases. All educational institutions, except medical and nursing colleges, have been ordered shut till April 10.
11. In Madhya Pradesh, 12 cities will observe complete lockdown every Sunday. These include Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur, Ratlam, Khargone, Chhindwara, Betul, Vidisha, Ujjain, Gwalior, Narsinghpur, and Sonsar.
12. In Gujarat, night curfew is in force in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot, and has been extended by another 15 days till April 15. The night curfew in these four cities will remain effective between 9 pm and 6 am. 

Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet Secretary is set to hold a meeting today with representatives of 11 states that are showing a surge in COVID19 cases. Uddhav Thackeray, the chief minister of Maharashtra, and Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of the national capital Delhi, will chair a meeting with their respective officials today, over the COVID19 situation in their states.

In today’s press briefing, Kejriwal said that there’s no plan to impose any lockdown in Delhi as of now. If there’s a need to do any such thing in future, we will first consult with you and take a decision, he said.

COVID-19 vaccination drive is underway across the country. So far, over 68.7 million vaccine doses have been administered across the country. More than 3.67 million vaccination coverage was recorded in the last 24 hours.

Twelve states/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These include Odisha, Nagaland, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, and Ladakh.