However, almost normal traffic on the streets shows the difficulty in controlling more than 125 million people in Patna, a state located close to the border with Nepal in northern India.
`We have never faced a situation like this in our lives, it was truly a terrible experience,` Radhika Singh, a nearly 50-year-old housewife said as she jostled to buy rice and lentils yesterday, before
Medical staff take samples to test for nCoV in a residential area in Ahmedabad city, India on July 8.
In the context that the number of nCoV infections nationwide is expected to reach one million in the next 1-2 days and the number of deaths is about to reach 25,000, local authorities across India are re-imposing restrictions that were recently lifted.
In Bihar state, a largely rural state with weak health infrastructure, it entered a 15-day lockdown from midnight last night, a day after the tech hub of Bangalore, home to 13 million people,
Because people did not comply with epidemic prevention regulations, Goa, another Indian state, announced a 3-day closure from last night and imposed a curfew at night until August 10.
`We have fined more than 40,000 people for not wearing masks, plus many people were detained for violating regulations, but they still continue to go out and wander around,` he said.
Bangalore seems to have coped better with Covid-19.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warns that the entire South Asia region is becoming the next epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic.
`While the world’s attention is focused on the ongoing crisis in the US and South America, a simultaneous human tragedy is rapidly emerging in South Asia,` the organization said.
While India has reported nearly 970,000 cases of nCoV, the pandemic is also ravaging Pakistan and Bangladesh with nearly 260,000 cases and 195,000 respectively.
IFRC cited an unverified report from scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, saying that in the next 6 months, India could increase by 287,000 infections per day.