Goa: The Goa government has extended the ‘curfew’ currently enforced in the state that was to end on Monday, May 23, until May 31 with the same conditions, Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant announced.“The curfew which was ending on Monday has been extended till May 31 across the state in the manner that currently exists,” Sawant announced. The curfew that was belatedly announced bars people from moving out of their houses except to buy essential commodities, for medical reasons or work. Only stores selling essentials are allowed to operate between 7 am and 1 pm

The decision was taken at a meeting of the cabinet held on Friday. Sawant, who was initially reluctant to announce any statewide lockdown measures, finally announced a two-week-long curfew that many, including his own health minister Vishwajit Rane, said arrived around two weeks too late. The curfew was finally announced but only after villages in Goa began announcing their own lockdown measures that were in variance with the state’s government’s stand that a curfew or a lockdown was not a solution to the cases that were then rising.

Despite numerous requests from the government, people are not taking adequate steps. If people had followed the law, the positivity rate would not have been 51 percent,” Sawant said two weeks ago while trying to explain why he was forced to announce a lockdown despite speaking against it. Goa’s positivity rate, which had touched 51% across the first week of May, has since fallen to around 31% but remains higher than the rest of the country while deaths continue to be around 40-50 per day. The chief minister also announced the creation of a special task force to deal with a possible third wave of the pandemic