The state of Goa, a popular holiday destination in India, has enacted new confinement, at a time when the country has approached one million cases of covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, was announced today.

Goa, one of the least affected Indian states, had decided to open to tourism just two weeks ago, on July 2, with the government of the former Portuguese colony then allowing the reopening of around 250 hotels, after more than three months of confinement.

The chief minister of that state, Pramod Sawant, announced a three-day quarantine, effective from today, and curfew overnight, because of the increase in infections.

The official said that the population was not respecting the rules of social distance. In the past two weeks, about 40,000 people have been fined for not wearing a mask in that state, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Goa has registered 198 new cases in the past 24 hours, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. The former Portuguese colony, one of the least affected states, accounted for a total of 2,951 infections and 18 deaths.

The return to quarantine comes at a time when India multiplies the number of new cases of covid-19, having registered 32,695 infections in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases since the beginning of the pandemic has risen to 968,876, almost one million infections.

The Indian Ministry of Health also counted 606 deaths in the last 24 hours, a new daily high, bringing the total number of deaths to 24,915.

The increase in cases has prompted authorities to reintroduce confinement in nearly a dozen high-risk states and areas to halt the spread of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

On Wednesday a two-week blockade was imposed in the eastern state of Bihar, where nearly 2.5 million migrant workers returned home after losing their jobs elsewhere in the country.

The main technology center in southern India, Bangalore, where branches of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are located, also decreed a one-week isolation period.

About a dozen other states, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam, have placed high-risk areas in isolation, allowing only the provision of essential food and the functioning of health services.

The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 579,000 deaths and infected more than 13.4 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the France-Presse news agency (AFP).

The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.

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