With the nationwide lockdown set to end on May 3, the Government has said that new guidelines to fight Coronavirus will come into effect from May 4, which shall give considerable relaxations to many districts.

This came after the Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday held a comprehensive review meeting on the lockdown situation and observed that there have been tremendous gains and improvement in the Coronavirus situation due to the shutdown till now.

The government noted that to ensure that these gains are not squandered away, the lockdown guidelines need to be strictly observed till May 3.

Details of the new measures will be communicated in the days to come, the Home Ministry spokesperson said on Twitter.

The ministry’s announcement came after allowing the movement of students, migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists and others stranded at various places due to the ongoing nationwide lockdown that is in place to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Government on Wednesday issued an order to all the States and Union Territories to facilitate Inter-State movement of stranded people including migrant labourers in the country.

As per the guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, all the persons to be transported have to be medically screened at both the source and destination and kept in home/institutional quarantine on arrival.

It has also been impressed upon that on arrival at their destination, such person(s) would be assessed by the local health authorities and kept in home quarantine, unless the assessment requires keeping the person in institutional quarantine. They would be kept under watch with periodic health check-ups.

For this purpose, States/UTs have been requested to encourage such persons to use the Aarogya Setu app through which their health status can be monitored and tracked.

In its evening update, the Union Health Ministry said the number of COVID-19 deaths has risen to 1,008, with a record jump of 71 in the last 24 hours, while the number of confirmed infections has climbed to 31,787.

The number of districts designated COVID-19 hotspots or “Red Zones” has come down to 129 from 170 a fortnight ago, but in the same period the number of infection-free districts or “Green Zones” too decreased from 325 to 307, news agency PTI reported, quoting official sources, on Wednesday.

During this time, the number of non-hotspot districts, also known as “Orange Zones”, increased from 207 to 297, they said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a 21-day strict complete lockdown in the entire nation, starting from 25 March. The lockdown 2.0 was implemented on May 15 for 19 days to break the chain of transmission of COVID-19 which so far has claimed 1074 lives and infected 33050 people. 1718 new cases and 67 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.