According to the new guidelines by the Health Ministry, a containment zone can only be opened after a period of 28 days after the hotspot’s sample report comes out negative.
The earlier guidelines had stated that if there is no case in a containment zone for 14 days, then the containment zone in that area could be removed.
With the nationwide lockdown across the country extended for two more weeks starting May 4, the Ministry of Home Affairs had issued new guidelines to regulate different activities in this period, based on the risk profiling of the districts of the country into red (hotspot), green and orange zones.
READ MORE HERE: Lockdown extension: What all will be allowed in red, green and orange zones
With 2,487 new cases and 83 fatalities in the past 24 hours, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country has now risen to 40,263 as per the latest Health Ministry data.
Of the total cases, 28,070 are active cases, 10,886 people have recovered, and 1,306 people have succumbed to the disease.