Covid spike: Tamil Nadu warns of night curfew if current measures fail

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Friday warned more restrictions including night curfew if the new curbs announced on Thursday for checking the spread of coronavirus fail to bear fruit.

An official release here said Chief Secretary Rajeev Ranjan, Commissioner of Revenue Administration K Phanindra Reddy, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, and senior officials took part in the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 8 to review the corona situation across the country.  

The Prime Minister gave many directives and suggestions for improving the situation and for containing the spread of this infection expeditiously, the release said and added that as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, the positivity rate had been coming down till February but now on an average, 3,900 new cases per day are found.  

The government has been reiterating that the people should adhere to the 'Covid Appropriate Behaviour' including wearing face masks, washing hands frequently, maintaining physical distance in public places, etc.  Since March 16 to date, Rs 2.88 crore has been collected as a fine from 1.36 lakh people for violating Covid norms. 

So far, 31.26 lakh persons have been administered the first dose of the Covid vaccine in Tamil Nadu, and 23.61 lakh persons have been given the second dose. In all, 34.87 lakh persons have been vaccinated in the State so far. 

To date, 2.01 crore RT-PCR tests have been done in the state and it has been decided to administer vaccines to all those above 45. For this purpose, the Corona vaccination festival would be conducted between April 14 to 16, the release added.