New Delhi (AFP)
India's main tourist attraction, the Taj Mahal will remain closed, authorities said on Sunday when the country has just recorded a record of cases of coronavirus.
The Ministry of Health reported just under 25,000 new cases and 613 deaths from coronavirus in 24 hours, the largest daily increase since the start of the pandemic in the country in late January.
This record of cases comes at a time when the capital begins to treat patients in a spiritual center converted into a gigantic isolation center and a hospital with 10,000 beds, many of which are made of cardboard.
The size of around twenty football fields, the facility will treat patients with mild symptoms.
The government is concerned that half a million people will be infected by the end of July.
Following this record increase, India's death toll rises to more than 673,000 cases of coronavirus and at least 19,268 deaths.
Authorities in the northern city of Agra have announced that the Taj Mahal will remain closed to visitors, after the national government gave the green light to reopen the palace on Monday, which has been closed since mid-March.
"The Taj Mahal (...) is a containment zone," said a document from the Agra authorities published on Sunday evening. "Containment zones" are established when the infection rate is high. All activities except essential services are stopped there.
In an attempt to stem the economic crisis, the containment measures introduced in India since the end of March have been gradually lifted.
However, schools, subways, cinemas, sports halls and swimming pools remain closed in this country of 1.3 billion inhabitants, and international flights stopped.
The hardest hit cities are Bombay (west), New Delhi (north) and Chennai (southeast).
The Indian government claims to be facing the health crisis but critics claim that the country performs very few tests, the actual balance being therefore unknown.
© 2020 AFP