Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the video conference that the southern state “requires” the lockdown to be extended till the end of April, a senior government official told CNN-News18.
With 911 patients, Tamil Nadu ranks second in the total number of positive COVID-19 cases, trailing Maharashtra. The state was, ironically, one of the last among industrial/urbanised states to record its first positive.
Tamil Nadu is currently battling against coronavirus hotspots in several districts such as Erode, where returnees from a religious congregation in Delhi had tested positive.
On Friday, the chief of a 19-member medical experts’ team had suggested extension of the lockdown by two weeks to hunker down on containment zones. Till recently, Tamil Nadu had followed the strategy of intense containment and judicious testing, in the words of health secretary Beela Rajesh.
With the arrival of rapid testing kits, the state will soon raise testing in hotspots, particularly among contacts of those who had returned from the Tablighi Jamaat in the middle of March.
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