India’s Maharashtra considers total lockdown as COVID cases rise

Indian state tightened travel restrictions and imposed night curfews as it reported almost two-thirds of national total.

India’s richest state, Maharashtra, is considering imposing a strict lockdown this week after recording the highest one-day jump in coronavirus infections of any Indian state since last March, officials said. Maharashtra tightened travel restrictions and imposed night curfews as it reported 40,414 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, almost two-thirds of the national total, many of them in the densely populated financial capital Mumbai. “In (Sunday’s) meeting of the (COVID-19) task force, it was suggested that very strict restrictions like lockdown should be imposed immediately,” the office of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said in a statement.