India reported nearly 80,500 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, taking its tally to 6.23 million, government data showed. Late on Wednesday, the federal government issued guidelines allowing movie theatres to reopen at 50% capacity and said states could decide to gradually open schools, colleges and other education institutions from Oct 15. India imposed a strict nationwide lockdown in March but has in recent months slowly lifted restrictions amid rising concerns of a sharp slowdown in economic growth. Hotels in the state can also open at 50% capacity from Oct 5, the local government said. India is second only to the United States in terms of total number of COVID-19 cases but an antibodies study shows that a large percentage of the population has not yet been exposed, suggesting a risk of cases rising much further.

Source: bd News24 September 30, 2020 16:52 UTC