What Is Yellow Alert For COVID-19? Fear Grips Delhi As Cases Spike

What is yellow alert? The national capital may see the implementation of the government's COVID-19 response directive if cases continue to spike like they have in Delhi over the past few days. The city has recorded 331 new positive cases in the last 24 hours. A night curfew between 11 PM to 5 AM will come into effect from December 27 to control the spread of the virus.

The yellow alert for COVID-19 comes under the Delhi government's Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) that is spread out over four phases and was approved by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) earlier this year following the brutal second wave.

The GRAP involves colour-coded COVID-19 responses - yellow, amber, orange and red - in ascending order of the seriousness of the situation. The yellow alert is to be issued in the event of the positivity rate going beyond the 0.5 percent mark; Delhi is presently on the 0.68 percent mark for the second consecutive day.

The Delhi government led by Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal announced the imposition of the yellow alert in the capital on December 28. In an address, he said his government is "ten times more prepared than before" to deal with a COVID-19 surge. Read here.

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What will shut, what will function under the yellow alert: 

• Schools and other educational institutions will be ordered to shut down. In Delhi, schools had resumed offline only recently from December 20, even as the country grapples with an Omicron scare that the medical community has warned could usher in the third wave of &t=3s">COVID-19.
• Restaurants and bars will be allowed to operate until 10 PM and at 50 percent capacity.
• Places of leisure like cinema halls, gyms, swimming pools and other auditoriums will have to pull the shutters temporarily. Large public gatherings will be banned with a cap on weddings and other social functions at 20 persons in a place.
• Metros and buses will operate at 50 percent seating capacity.

Ahead of the holiday season, the DDMA had announced a cancellation of all Christmas and New Year gatherings in the city. The night curfew further seeks to limit gatherings and movement. Delhi's daily tally of 331 new cases is the highest the capital has seen in six months. Delhi is also leading the count of Omicron cases in the country.