India announces 21 day 'total lockdown' as coronavirus cases rise

Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a "complete" lockdown for India's 1.3 Billion people on Tuesday, warning that "many families will be destroyed forever" if the country didn't get to grips with its coronavirus outbreak in the next three weeks. No flights. No trains. Only essential services open. More than 1.3 billion people urged to stay in their homes.

"From 12 midnight today (Tuesday)  the entire country will be in lockdown, total lockdown," Modi said on Tuesday in a televised address, his second in a week.

"To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family... every street, every neighbourhood is being put under lockdown," he said, putting nearly one-fifth of the world's population under lockdown.

India has lagged behind other nations in the number of COVID-19 cases, but there has been a sharp increase in recent days to 519 infections, including 10 deaths, according to the government.

Reiterating the importance of social distancing, he said, we can only prevent new cases and contain the virus through it. India may have to pay a big price due to the negligence of a few. "To stop coronavirus, stay at a distance from each other and stay inside your houses," he said.

"If we don't handle these 21 days well, then our country, your family will go backwards by 21 years," Modi added underscoring the importance of self-isolation and social distancing
 

There are fears in India about the virus spreading into impoverished communities and the ability of resource-starved public health sectors to cope.

A health official in the western state of Maharashtra said new cases were starting to appear in small towns after a first wave emerged in big cities like Mumbai.

A new concern in the northern Indian state of Punjab was the risk of infection from an estimated 90,000 overseas Indians who had travelled back to their ancestral homeland, the state government's top health official, Balbir Singh Sidhu.

Many people from Punjab live in Britain, the United States and Canada and travel back in the cool winter to visit.

A team of scientists based mainly in the US said this week that India's tally of infections could jump to 1.3 million by mid-May if the virus maintains its rate of spread.

For the next 21 days, there will be restrictions on commerce and movement across the length and breadth of India. Even at the height of its battle against the virus, China did not impose a nationwide lockdown.