The Indian government will ban all international flights to India for a week starting Sunday (March 22), just one of the slew of very strict measures enacted to prevent mass coronavirus outbreak.

Senior citizens above the age of 65 have also been asked to stay at home, while parents have been told to keep children under the age of 10 at home, the government said on Thursday (March 19) in the latest of many guidelines it has issued.The government has also asked private companies to let employees work from home, with the exception of emergency and essential service providers, while 50 per cent of government officials have been asked to come in on alternate days and at staggered timings. The guidelines come ahead of a highly anticipated address to the nation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his first, later in the day.

India, so far, has 149 cases of Covid-19 and four fatalities.The south Asian country is seen to be doing well with the number of cases still low compared to the country’s 1.35 billion population, although questions have been raised over whether there are many more cases and enough testing has been done for the virus.

India started restricting the movement of people into the country last week. It started with temperature screening of travellers arriving from a handful of countries including Singapore before extending screenings to all international arrivals on March 3.

Story Courtesy : Strait Times