Omicron surge: Schools, colleges declared closed in India’s West Bengal

West Bengal government today announced the reimposition of a slew of Covid-19 restrictions from tomorrow, including closing down all schools and colleges as well as cinema halls, gyms and swimming pools as daily cases of the infection rose sharply over the last one week.

Attendance at government and private offices will once again be capped at 50 percent from tomorrow.

Restrictions have also been imposed on shopping malls, market complexes, restaurants, and bars which will be allowed to operate with only 50 percent of their total capacity.

Local trains have been permitted to run with half of their capacity and government and private offices would operate with 50 percent of staff attendance from tomorrow.

The state reported 4,512 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, which takes its active caseload to 13,300 -- the third-highest in the country after Maharashtra and Kerala states.

West Bengal has also reported 20 cases of the more infectious Omicron variant, reports our New Delhi Correspondent.

According to one report, the number of Covid-19 cases in the state rose ten times in the last six days from 439 since Monday last week to 4,512 yesterday with more than half of them in Kolkata alone.

Kolkata, along with India's national capital Delhi and financial hub Mumbai, is showing an exponential rise in daily new Covid cases over the last week.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has put on hold the resumption of its flagship social welfare scheme "Duare Sarkar" -- to take government services at doorsteps -- to stop crowding.

Thousands of people, many of them without masks, had thronged the iconic Park Street on Christmas day and New Year's Day throwing social distancing norm to the wind.