With sharp drop in Covid-19 cases, the Odisha government on Friday announced further relaxations in the guidelines to check the spread of COVID.
As per the latest notification, the government has announced to lift night curfew restrictions from all urban areas in the State.
The Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) has said that the night curfew restrictions will be withdrawn from all urban areas from tonight.
It is pertinent to mention here that the government had clamped night curfew restrictions from 10 pm to 5 am till February 28, 2022 in its pandemic guidelines for the month owing to steep rise in COVID cases triggered by the new Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
"Whereas, a continuous decrease in the number of COVID cases is observed in the State and number of active cases has also decreased. Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred under Section 24(I) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 read with Rule 8(1) of the Odisha Disaster Management Rules,2010, the State Government do hereby order that "Night Curfew is withdrawn/ lifted from all urban areas of the State with effect from 18th February, 2022," the SRC notification read.
Recently, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had directed Chief Secretaries of states to lift the restrictions after taking into account the trend of Covid-19 cases, active cases, and positivity rate.
As the case trajectory across the nation is showing a sustained downward trend, it will be useful if the states and union territories either amend or do away with the additional restrictions so imposed, after considering the trend of new cases, active cases and positivity within the state,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan’s letter read.