Urban lockdown for a week in Mizoram, Arunachal advances school vacations From urban lockdown in Mizoram to advanced summer vacation for schools in Arunachal Pradesh and partial attendance in educational institutions and offices in Assam, the northeastern States have taken diverse actions in a bid to check the surge in COVID-19 cases. Data with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said COVID-19 claimed nine lives in three of the eight northeastern States on April 19 — seven of them in Assam — as the region recorded 1,333 active cases. Officials in States such as Meghalaya said the rate of infection over the past few days has been six times more than the corresponding period in 2020. The surge has forced Meghalaya and its northeastern neighbours to go for a series of restrictive measures to contain the spread of the “new strain” of the virus.