The five cities of Tamil Nadu – including the state capital Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Salem and Madurai have started their “intense lockdown” from Sunday morning which will go on till April 28 in three cities – Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai, while Salem and Tripur are under restrict for three days, till Tuesday, to contain the spread of COVID-19  further in densely populated areas.

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had taken the decision on Friday afternoon after he chaired a review meeting on the coronavirus spread in the state.

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The official statement stated that a four-day intense shutdown has been declared in Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore from Sunday 6 am, which will continue till 9 pm on Wednesday. In Tirupur and Salem, starting 6 am on Sunday till 9 pm on Tuesday, restrictions will be intensified for three days.

Under this intense lockdown,  people are not allowed to go out to even buy groceries. Grocery, fruit and vegetable shops have been closed down to completely curb the movement of public. Restaurant takeaways services are also not working, but home delivery is functional. Vegetables and fruits sellers on carts are selling door-to-door.

CM Palaniswami had said on Friday that sanitisation of containment zones will be done twice a day in the state. He said only work from home is permitted for software companies and other private companies should not function in these five districts. “To vend vegetables and fruits, only mobile outlets shall be allowed,” he added.

Only hospitals, pharmacies, state-run shops providing essential services, government-run Amma canteens that provide food at subsidised rates, ATMs are running during this period of intense lockdown.

While the essential services departments in the state secretariat, health, revenue, disaster management, electricity, milk, water supply departments, other central and state government offices with 33 per cent staff strength, old age homes and orphanages, community kitchens run by district/local administrations, service organisations for the benefit of poor with government permission are also allowed to function.

On Saturday, in a bid to stock up the essential commodities for these four days when people are not allowed to step out, thousands of them queued up outside shops breaking the social distancing norms in many parts of the state.

With 8121 positive cases of Coronavirus in the state so far,  nearly 46 per cent of them have been recorded from these five cities. State capital Chennai has 495 coronavirus cases while  Coimbatore has 141, Madurai has 60 cases. 110 cases have been registered from Tirupur has 110 cases so far while Salem reported to have 30 cases.

The death toll due to COVID-19 in the state has reached 23 so far.