COVID-19: Ahmedabad zoo, lakefront, gardens closed

Ahmedabad, Mar 17: The Ahmedabad civic body on Wednesday announced the closure of the city zoo, lakefront and all public gardens here in view of the rising COVID-19 cases.
On Tuesday, the city recorded 241 new cases of coronavirus, a sharp increase from 40 cases reported a month back on February 16.

The COVID-19 tally in the city has gone up to 60,992, as per official figures.

"It has been decided to close all the gardens, Kankaria Lakefront, zoo, etc from March 18 till further orders in view of the COVID-19 pandemic," the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) said in a release.

The Gujarat government on Tuesday increased the night curfew timings in Ahmedabad and three other major cities -- Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot -- by two hours.

The curfew will now remain in force from 10 pm to 6 am, instead of the previous timings of 12 am to 6 am, till March 31.

As of Tuesday, there were 60 ''micro-containment'' areas (where a number of COVID-19 cases have been found) in the city, the civic body said.

Ahmedabad has so far reported 2,269 deaths due to COVID-19, while 58,043 have recovered from the disease.

The COVID-19 recovery rate in the city stood at 95.3 per cent, as per the civic body.