Maharashtra government on Thursday announced a series of harsh measures for Akola, Yavatmal and Amravati districts to curb the COVID-19 spread.
Yavatmal and Amravati - the last two districts said to have reported new virus strains. Yavatmal and Amravati are among districts which have shown considerable increase in new cases in the last one week. The Collectors of Akola, Yavatmal and Amravati have been directed to declare areas with high incidence of Covid-19 cases in their jurisdictions as "containment zones".
However the state health department on Friday said that no new case of new COVID-19 strain has been found in Yavatmal, Amaravati and Satara districts.
The genome sequencing was conducted on 24 samples -- four each from Amravati, Yavatmal and Satara and 12 from Pune, Dr Rajesh Karyekarte, said Head of Department of Microbiology at the state-run B J Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital. However, the genome sequencing of the samples did not show the UK, South African or Brazilian strains of the virus.
The Amravati district administration on Thursday announced a weekend lockdown in Amravati. The lockdown will be implemented from 8 pm on Saturday to 7 am on Monday, a period during which markets and other establishments will remain shut.
Maharashtra on Thursday reported over 5,000 new cases after a gap of 75 days.