The Madhya Pradesh government announced on Thursday that markets in state capital Bhopal will remain close on Saturdays and Sundays in view of alarming rise in the number of coronavirus cases.
“We have decided that Bhopal will remain shut for two days in a week – on Saturdays and Sundays,” state health minister Narottam Mishra said.
Bhopal has so far reported 2,012 Covid-19 patients including 66 who died.
After the lockdown was eased, the shops and markets outside containment zones were allowed to open.
The coronavirus case count in Madhya Pradesh reached 10,241 on Thursday with 192 new patients being detected, 85 of them in Bhopal, since Wednesday evening.
Four Covid-19 patients died during this period, taking the death toll to 431, the health department said.
The state has added 2,152 new cases of the coronavirus disease since lockdown was eased on May 31.
No new coronavirus case was reported from 28 districts since Wednesday evening. While cases have been reported from all 52 districts now, four of them did not have any active cases on Thursday, the bulletin from health department said on Thursday.
Out of the total number of infections, 2,768 are active cases, 192 new and 7,042 have recovered. The state government has so far tested 2,33,740 people.
The nationwide Covid-19 tally neared 2.9 lakh on Thursday with a record one-day increase of nearly 10,000 cases.
In its morning update, the Union Health Ministry said the total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases has risen to 2,86,579 after a record number of 9,996 cases were reported in 24 hours since Wednesday 8 am.
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