Chennai: With three more days to go for the current lockdown to end, Chief Minister M K Stalin today chaired a high-level meet at the Secretariat here to take a decision on whether to extend it or not.
The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu, Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan and other senior officials.
According to sources, restrictions will be eased in Chennai and other districts where Covid-19 cases are coming down, while lockdown will continue in western district where cases are high. An official announcement is expected to be made in a day or two.
Stalin recently sought the cooperation of the people in the state to end the lockdown imposed to curb the Covid-19 virus surge.
“People would have understood that lockdowns helped bring down Covid-19 cases. But we cannot keep prolonging the lockdowns. We have to end it. But that is in your hands,” Stalin said in a video message.
The Chief Minister said the State was facing the second wave due to the failure to put an end to the first wave of the pandemic. It created a crisis for the state’s medical infrastructure and finance, he said.
“We should come out of it soon. People of the state should take responsibility to break the chain of transmission of the virus and return to development and progress,” he said.
As a result of the intense lockdown imposed, the spread of Covid-19 has been on the decline in Chennai and other major cities gradually across Tamilnadu, he pointed out. Chennai, which reported about 7,000 positive cases per day earlier, was only reporting about 2,000 cases over the past few days.