MUMBAI, Feb 28: Maharashtra, where the covid infection cases were going down for several months like elsewhere in the country, although at a slower speed, is recording a surge since early this month, leading to fears of a second wave of the epidemic. The covid cases are showing an uptick in a few other States also like Kerala and Punjab.

In Maharashtra, the districts majorly affected by the new surge are Pune, Nagpur, Amravati, Yavatmal, Mumbai city, Mumbai suburban and Thane although the Government has declared 28 out of 36 districts in the State as affected.

The Government has in the recent weeks banned gatherings and restricted inter-State movements. Fines are being slapped on violators of covid prevention guidelines like not wearing face mask in public places.

Local lockdown is being clamped in the affected areas. In Amravati and Achalpur cities, lockdown has been extended for a further week. while restrictions were also imposed for the weekend in Nagpur, Buldhana and Yavatmal. Achalpur, Anjangaon and Surji towns will also remain under lockdown till March 8. Pune will be under night curfew till March 14 and all schools will remain shut.

The lockdown also forced the educational institutions, coaching classes, training schools to remain shut until March 8.

Public places like cinema halls, gyms, swimming pools, parks have been ordered to remain shut and gatherings for entertainment, educational, cultural, religious purposes are not permitted in the affected districts. Hotels in these districts cannot operate beyond 9 pm, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said.

In Maharashtra, 51 new deaths took the toll to 52,092, and the new cases were 8,623, total cases being 21,46,777. The active cases totalled 72,530.

The Capital, Mumbai, reported 987 new cases, while 4 people died due to the infection in the last 24 hours.

In the country, there were 113 new deaths raising the tally to 1,56,938; there were 16,488 new cases, the total being 1,10,79,979. Testing of 21.15 crore samples have been done so far, at 2,400 testing centres.

GUJARAT: In Gujarat, the Government has extended the night curfew in four major cities of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot by another 15 days. The curfew was set to end on February 28.There has been recently a rise in coronavirus cases in these four municipal corporations, an official statement issued on Friday night read.