Covid-19 Surge: UP, Haryana make masks must in districts next to Delhi

With Covid-19 cases rising again, the Uttar Pradesh and Haryana governments on Monday made masks mandatory in the districts surrounding Delhi. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) is also likely to discuss the mandatory use of masks in the capital at its meeting on Wednesday.

Delhi, UP and Haryana scrapped the fine for not wearing masks in public in the first week of April.

In UP, masks have been made mandatory in Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Meerut, Bulandshahr and Baghpat. Most of the new cases reported in the state on Sunday were from two of these districts. While 76 new cases were reported from Gautam Buddha Nagar, 33 were from Ghaziabad, 7 from Lucknow, 2 each from Meerut and Bulandshahr, and one from Baghpat on Sunday. These are also the districts with the highest number of active cases. Of the 695 active cases in Uttar Pradesh, Gautam Buddha Nagar has 280, Ghaziabad 113, Lucknow 41, Meerut 11, Bulandshahr 5, and Baghpat 2.

In Haryana, Health Minister Anil Vij said masks will be made mandatory in Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonipat and Jhajjar. Of the 238 new cases reported in the state on Monday, 198 were from Gurgaon and 22 from Faridabad; more than half the districts in the state reported no new case.

Sources said genome sequencing of the samples tested in UP showed the Omicron variant, which drove the surge in January. According to sources, the XE variant (a recombinant variant of Omicron’s sub lineages BA.1 and BA.2) hasn’t been detected. The samples of new cases in Haryana have been sent for genome sequencing in Rohtak.

In Delhi, the number of new cases remained over 500 for two days in a row, with 501 new cases reported on Monday. The city has been seeing an increasing positivity rate as well — it was 7.72% on Monday. This could be due to a sharp drop in the number of tests after the January wave, with only symptomatic people getting tested.

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