The all-India stringency index has declined to 31.5 per cent, the lowest since the initial period of the pandemic in March 2020. It has been declining from a high of 83.3 per cent in February 2022 when the third wave of the pandemic led to an increase in restrictions.
The stringency index is a composite measure on nine response indicators, including school and workplace closures, and travel bans rescaled to a value from 0 to 100 (100 being the strictest).
On the global stage, India has a relative low stringency score when compared to countries like China, Indonesia, Japan and the US. China has one of the highest stringency index of 72.9 per cent due to high cases followed by Indonesia at 52.8 percent. France, UK, Germany and Russia have opened up more than India and have lower stringency score.
Despite India opening up, visitor levels to various places have begun to drop due to the rise in number of cases in June 2022. This spike in cases have impacted visitor movements to drop since the middle of June 2022.
Visitor levels to public transport hubs like bus and train stations, retail and recreational places like restaurants, cafes, movie theatres and shopping centres along with parks and outdoor places have seen a dip in July 2022.
On the contrary, visitors to office places have begun to increase in July 2022 due to offices opening up and calling employees back to offices.