India's Haryana state imposes 7-day complete lockdown to control COVID-19 spread

A complete seven-day complete lockdown has been imposed in India's northern state of Haryana with effect from May 3 in a bid to curb the rising graph of COVID-19 pandemic, announced the state's health minister Ani Vij on Sunday.

Haryana is a neighbouring state of Delhi, and has been emerging as one of the COVID-19 hotspots in the country. The state is already under a weekend lockdown, with effect from Friday night till Monday morning.

As many as 13,588 new cases and 125 deaths were recorded through Saturday in Haryana, even as the national capital witnessed 25,219 new cases and 412 deaths during the day.

Delhi is already under a seven-day extended lockdown till May 10.

Like most states, Delhi and Haryana too are facing an acute shortage of oxygen for COVID-19 patients. People can be seen standing in long queues to get oxygen cylinders filled for their family members, relatives or near and dear ones who are suffering from the virus.

The ongoing second wave of the pandemic has hit India hard, even as the single-day spike of new cases crossed 400,000 on Saturday.

So far, the COVID-19 tally has reached 19,557,457 while the country's death toll stands at 215,542.