COVID-19: Chandigarh announces new curbs; restaurants, banquet halls to run at 50% capacity

Amid Omicron concerns, the State Disaster Management Authority on Sunday, January 1, ordered that restaurants including hotels, coffee shops, eating places, marriage palaces and banquet halls in Chandigarh will now open with 50 per cent capacity.

The order will be coming into force with immediate effect and will be applicable until further orders.

As per the order, only those who have taken both doses of vaccine will be allowed entry at the above mentioned places.

Any breach of this order shall invite action under section 51 to 60 of the Disaster management Act, 2005 and Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code alongwith other applicable laws.

This comes a day after neighbouring Haryana ordered the closure of cinema halls, sports complexes, swimming pools, and entertainment parks in Gurugram, Faridabad, Ambala, Panchkula and Sonepat from 2 to 12 January.

According to an official order, all the sports complexes, swimming pools, and stadia shall remain closed except when being used for training of sportspersons for participation in national and international sports events.

The orders come a day after Chandigarh on Saturday recorded its highest single-day spike since June as 70 fresh Covid-19 cases were recorded, taking the total number of active cases in the City to 236.

The city had reported 49 new cases and no new death on Friday. Eight patients were cured of the disease in the past 24 hours.

Haryana on Friday saw the biggest single-day jump of 26 cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus that pushed its tally of such infections to 63.