The Uttar Pradesh government has issued a set of guidelines in tandem with the unlock guidelines issued by the Home Ministry for the next phase of relaxation of the Covid-19 lockdown.

The guidelines issued by Chief Secretary R K Tiwari has allowed more activities, including the reopening of cinemas, theatres, schools and universities. The guidelines on public gatherings have also been relaxed.

As per the new guidelines issued by the state government, schools, universities and educational institutes can reopen after October 15th in a graded manner, however, they will have to first discuss with their respective district administration before taking a decision.

Online classes and distance learning shall be encouraged and students who want to come to school voluntarily will be allowed to do so but will need the consent from their parents. In view of the upcoming festivals, social, cultural, religious and political public gatherings can consist of more than 100 people outside containment zones from October 15.

However, a closed space can have 50% of its capacity or a maximum of 200 people at a time. A detailed SOP in this regard will be issued separately by the state government so that proper restrictions can be imposed on the people gathered in such places.

From October 15, cinemas, theatres and multiplexes outside containment zones can also reopen with up to 50% seating capacity.

It was also reported that Uttar Pradesh has achieved another land mark in testing of COVID samples by becoming first state in the country to undertake over one crore tests to screen Corona virus.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath termed it a great achievement and said that government has conducted 1.5 lakh tests per day for the past 45 days.  As on Wednesday, the total number of tests conducted in state stood at 1,00,98,896 as per official data released by the State Medical Education Department. Of these, nearly 42 per cent of tests were done through the RT-PCR method.

UP’s share in the total tests conducted in the country now stands at 13.6 per cent. State’s daily average of testing over the past few days has been 1.5 lakh tests. Secretary to CM, Alok Kumar said that the state reached this milestone while maintaining the positivity rate around four per cent. There is also see a significant declining trend in infection and mortality numbers in the state. A significant decrease of 25 per cent in active cases has been achieved by the state in last 10 days. Recovery rate of patients has been increased to 85.50 per cent which is more than national average.