60-hour weekend lockdown in all Madhya Pradesh cities: CM Chouhan

A lockdown will be enforced in all cities of Madhya Pradesh from 6 pm on Friday to 6 am on Monday to check the spread of the coronavirus infection, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Thursday.

Talking to reporters here after chairing a meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in MP, Chouhan said his government aims to increase the number of beds for COVID-19 patients in the state to one lakh.

"A lockdown will be enforced in all cities of the state from 6 pm on Friday to 6 am on Monday," Chouhan said.

In the past three weeks, the state government imposed lockdowns in Bhopal, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior on Sundays and extended the curbs to some other cities last Sunday.

Chouhan said various crisis management groups will hold meetings to review the situation in cities where there has been a spurt in COVID-19 cases and will decide the course of action to contain it.

Besides increasing the number of beds for the viral infection patients, the state government has also decided to set up one COVID-19 care centre in each district, he said.

There are total 52 districts in MP.

Private hospitals are also being roped in to increase number of beds for COVID-19 patients, Chouhan said.

On Wednesday, MP reported 4,043 new cases of coronavirus, taking its tally to 3,18,014, while 13 fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,086, as per official data.