By Sanjay Kumar
NEW DELHI, Jan 16 – The Indian state of Tamil Nadu will go under a complete lockdown on all Sundays in view of the rising cases of coronavirus (COVID-19).
State capital Chennai, Madurai along with other major cities observed a total lockdown and wore a deserted look with hardly any traffic on the roads today.
The state government has been reimposing a Sunday lockdown in the state since January 9. Like many other states, Tamil Nadu is also observing a night curfew from 10 pm to 5 am.
As part of restrictions, restaurants are allowed to offer only take away services from 7 am to 10 pm. However, essential services workers are allowed to continue their work. Bus and other public transport, including the Metro rail, have been suspended. Flights have been exempted from these restrictions. People are allowed to attend family functions, including marriages, during the Sunday lockdown, which has been restricted to 100 people.
According to a report by ANI, Schools have been declared shut in Tamil Nadu for all classes, due to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the state. The exams which were supposed to be held on January 19 are now postponed. All places of worship are already shut across the state to prevent crowding.
The daily coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu continued an upward trend with a high of 23,978 cases on Saturday. This is the second straight day that the daily infections were above the 23,000-mark. As many as 11 patients died and nearly 11,000 patients were discharged on Saturday, taking the cumulative count of deaths and recoveries to 36,967 and 27,47,974, respectively. The active cases in the state stand at 1,31,007.
According to the Union health ministry, Tamil Nadu along with seven others states has emerged as states of concern with high Covid-19 cases and positivity rate.
According to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday, India added 2,71,202 new coronavirus cases, taking the total tally of COVID-19 to 3,71,22,164, including 7,743 cases of the Omicron variant.
–WE