COVID-19: No total lockdown in Chennai as of now, Tamil Nadu government tells High Court

Chennai: There was no plan as of now to bring Chennai or any other place in Tamil Nadu under complete lockdown to check COVID-19 spread but stringent steps were being taken in containment areas with high number of cases, the state government informed the Madras High Court on Friday. The submission was made before a bench of Justice Vineet Kothari and R Suresh Kumar in response to its query on Thursday whether complete lockdown can be implemented in the metropolis and its suburbs for some time as these areas have been reporting high number of new COVID-19 cases in the past several days. Despite the steps taken by the government to contain COVID-19 spread, everyday the number of cases is "steeply rising and the situation has become alarming" particularly in the metropolis and its outskirts, the bench had said. "Therefore, we want to know whether the government has devised any special scheme, which includes complete lockdown or curfew to contain the spread in Chennai and surrounding areas for sometime," the judges had asked during the virtual court proceedings after concluding listed cases on Thursday. Appearing for the state, Additional Advocate General S R Rajagopal on Friday told the bench that the virus cases in Chennai and its suburbs were indeed increasing. "But we are taking stringent steps to contain the spread.
There is no proposal to implement 100 per cent lockdown as of now. we are restricting movement of people in streets where cases are high in numbers," he said. When the bench asked about reports that people from Chennai would not be allowed to travel to other districts and that the issuance of e-passes had been stopped, Rajagopal answered in the negative. E-passes were being issued by the concerned district collectors and the reports were incorrect, he added. As of Thursday, Tamil Nadu had 38,716 COVID-19 cases with Chennai alone accounting for 27,398 while the state-wide toll due to the disease stood at 349. The state has been reporting 1,500 plus new cases every day since Sunday with a majority of the infections coming from Chennai and its adjoining districts.