Chennai: As several districts of Tamilnadu braced up for a four-day complete lockdown from tomorrow to prevent the speed and intensity of the coronavirus spread, social distancing norms went for a toss as people vied with each other to stock groceries and vegetables.
As the number of cases kept increasing, especially in urban areas and to prevent people from freaking out, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced complete lockdown for four days in Chennai, Coimbatore and Madurai and for three days in Salem and Tiruppur to contain the Covid pandemic, which has so far claimed 22 lives and 1,755 people testing positive.
In line with the Chief Minister’s announcement, several districts including Cuddalore, Tiruvallur, Chengalpattu and Kancheepuram too declared a complete lockdown for four days from 6 am tomorrow till 9 pm on 29 April.
In a bid to stock enough stock of essentials like groceries and vegetables, people thronged the shops in large numbers, throwingthe social distancing norms to the wind.
Long queues were seen in front of several grocery chains across the State, even before the shutters were open at 6 am.
A News Today reporter, who went round some of the areas in Chennai City, saw the crowd kept swelling with every passing minute. The number of people standing in queues could be anywhere between 200 to 250 in all retail grocery stores and also at vegetable and fruit shops.
The anxiety among the people to have enough stock of essentials was palpable as the shops would be closed after 1 pm today, triggering panic buying, despite the government announcing that essential items were exempted from the lockdown. But the government extended the time till 3 pm today.
The crowd was unprecedented athe whole vegetables and fruits market at Koyambedu as people thronged in large numbers, leading to traffic jam in the area.