|
 The 100,636 new infections of the past 24 hours were the lowest in
the world's second most populous nation since April 6, and well off
last month's peaks of more than 400,000, allowing authorities to
re-open parts of the economy.
"We have to save ourselves from infection but also bring the economy
back on track," Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on
Twitter.
He ordered half the capital's shops to open on odd and even numbered
days of the month respectively, in a bid to limit crowds, but
allowed offices and the Delhi underground rail network to run at 50%
of capacity.
But some curbs were retained, such as the ban on dining in
restaurants and the use of theatres and gyms in a city still slowly
recovering from a surge in the months of April and May that
overwhelmed hospitals.
They ran short of beds and medical oxygen, and people died in
hospital parking lots and homes, while crematoriums and morgues
struggled to cope with an incessant flow of corpses.
India added 2,427 deaths overnight for a toll of 349,186, the health
ministry said, down from more than 4,000 each day at the height of
the crisis, while its tally of infections now stands at 28.9
million.
But experts believe that both figures have been severely
undercounted and could be a few times higher than the official
number.
Authorities in the western state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai,
allowed businesses to run until late afternoon, staffed with half
their employees, and opened gyms, salons and spas though cinemas and
malls are to stay shut.
[to top of second column] |
 The re-opening efforts come as
authorities struggle to vaccinate the population
of nearly 1.4 billion in a strategy officials
say is the only way to limiting any third wave
of infections.
But tight supplies have meant that fewer than 5%
of 950 million adult Indians have received the
mandatory two vaccine doses. The
pressure to resume some economic activity has grown as millions
depend on daily wages to pay for food and rent.
"I have opened my shop after 40 days," a tea vendor, Monu Yadav,
told Reuters partner ANI in the northern city of Varanasi, adding
that only a fraction of his customers had returned.
Last week, the central bank cut its forecast for economic growth to
9.5% from 10.5% for the fiscal year 2021/22.
The second wave had "impaired the nascent recovery that was
underway," but "not snuffed it out", said Shaktikanta Das, the
governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
(Reporting by Neha Arora in New Delhi and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in
Mumbai; Additional reporting by Manas Mishra, Rajendra Jadhav and
Bhargav Acharya;Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Clarence Fernandez)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content |
