Mumbai municipal commissioner issues orders to ensure social distancing, help hospitals 'decongest' to prepare for emergencies

Mumbai: Mumbai Municipal Commissioner Pravin Pardeshi on late Friday evening issued several orders to ensure social distancing to contain coronavirus as well as “decongest” hospitals to prepare for any contingency arising out of the epidemic. _**Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak**_ Maharashtra has recorded at least 52 cases of coronavirus infection so far. The commissioner restricted movement of vehicles in areas around isolation or quarantine centres at Kasturba Hospital, KEM Hospital and Seven Hills Hospital. [caption id=“attachment_8164631” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A volunteer sprays disinfectants inside a Delhi bus in the wake of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. PTI[/caption] He also ordered the immediate closure of schools, cinema halls, malls, gyms, swimming pools, pubs, discotheques, amusement parks, and banned public functions. Restaurants, dhabas, cafes and other eateries can continue to operate if they can self-impose fifty percent customer capacity and maintain a distance of three feet between two customers, the order said. All “private, corporate establishments” are to be shut down, the commissioner’s order said. However, establishments or firms providing essential services such as drinking water, electricity, banking, sewerage, healthcare, media, port, telecom, vendors of food, groceries and vegetables, petrol pumps, IT services, data centres, e-commerce of essential items including food, among others were exempted from the closure order. The order further said that in order to “de-congest major hospitals” so that they can accommodate Covid-19 cases if the need be, all “stable patients” who do not need “tertiary” care shall be discharged, or shifted to “peripheral hospitals”. All patients admitted for “elective surgery” shall be discharged. A distance of one metre shall be maintained between hospital beds; no sharing of beds will be allowed, the commissioner’s order further said.