Ahead of Dussehra festivals, Delhi CM Kejriwal urges people to take precautions against COVID-19

New Delhi, Sep 10: With the festival season kicking in next month, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has urged people to take precautions against COVID-19 infection.

"Many festivals are approaching in the coming months. While the COVID-19 pandemic is under control in Delhi, it is important to have preventive measures in place to contain the spread of COVID-19 at religious places of worship," he said.

The Navratri festival that involves temple visits and fasts for nine days will begin from October 17. It will culminate with Vijaya Dashmi or Dussehra on October 25. The festival of Diwali will be celebrated in the month of November.

"I would like to appeal to the general public as well as the organisations managing religious places to adhere to all the preventive measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the religious places during the upcoming festival season," the chief minister said in his appeal.

Delhi has witnessed a spurt in number of COVID-19 cases in the last few days with daily testing of virus doubled from 15000-20,000 to now over 40,000 by the city government. Delhi government's health bulletin on Wednesday recorded 4,039 fresh COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day spike so far, as the tally breached the 2 lakh mark.

Also, the highest ever number of tests at 54,517 were conducted on the day. Kejriwal said that it is important that everyone visiting religious places follows preventive measures like maintaining a minimum distance of six feet, using face masks and washing hands frequently with soap or alcohol-based hand sanitisers.

"Visitors and workers at all religious places must observe respiratory safety etiquette to reduce the risk of COVID-19 at all times. All religious places will also be required to comply with the preventive measures inside their premises," he said.

The religious places in the city were closed with the announcement of lockdown as the coronavirus cases spread in March. Under the unlockdown process, the religious places opened in August and various festivals like Janmashtami, Eid and Bakrid were celebrated with temples and mosques putting in places various preventive measures.