NEW DELHI: The AAP-led Delhi government on Thursday informed the Delhi High Court that no night curfew would be imposed in the city for now to contain the spread of coronavirus since the caseload has seen a dip.
The submission was made before a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad in response to the court’s query on November 26 as to whether night curfew would be imposed in Delhi to contain the spread of the infection.
The court directed the government to “focus on testing and tracing” to deal with the Covid-19 infection numbers in the national capital, as the “fear factor” regarding the virus was “huge” in the minds of people.
The bench also said the time to declare Covid test results should be brought down to 24 hours from the current 48 hours or more. The court said labs can message the results to people on their mobiles numbers, which are taken at time of sample collection, and it can be put up on the websites later.
The directions and suggestions by the court came while hearing a PIL by advocate Rakesh Malhotra seeking increase in the Covid-19 testing numbers in the national capital and getting speedy results.
During the hearing, the court told the government that testing must be focused and to ensure tracing is equally focused.It told the government, represented by senior advocate Sandeep Sethi and additional standing counsel Satyakam, that presently “almost everyone was feeling unsafe”.
“It is not just because of the infection, but because you don’t know who is the carrier. Both things are weighing heavily on the minds of the people. Mild infections people might recover from quickly, but the fear factor is huge at this time,” the bench said to the govenment.
The govenrment counsel during the proceedings mentioned that an order was passed on November 28 restricting 50 per cent attendance of employees (below grade-1) of non-essential services, government departments, corporations, public sector undertakings and local bodies.“The private establishments have also been advised to stagger office timings and presence of staff to reduce the number of employees attending office,” it further said.