Tamil Nadu to shut cinemas, bars and places of worship from 26 April; daily COVID cases surpass 14k

Chennai: Cinemas, places of worship, malls, bars and salons must be shut effective 26 April, the Tamil Nadu government announced on Saturday reintroducing more curbs following surging COVID-19 cases.

People from abroad and other states shall be allowed entry to Tamil Nadu only if they have registered in the portal eregister.tnega.org and information on registration should be produced to authorities on arrival.

Those from the neighbouring Union Territory of Puducherry are exempted from the e-registration norm, the government said in an official release.

Recreation clubs, all types of bars, auditoriums, big format shops, shopping complexes and malls shall not be allowed to operate, the government said.

In all corporation and municipal areas, beauty parlours spas and salons are not allowed and only takeaway services should be offered in restaurants, hotels and tea shops.

"In all places of worship, there will be no permission for the general public to offer worship," the government said.

However, there was no bar on employees continuing with usual worship and prayer sessions, it added. The general public must not be allowed in temple consecration functions too.

Sporting activities, except those related to international and national level events, would also not be permitted.

Not more than 50 people may assemble for marriages and for a funeral the upper limit is 25, the government said.

The current restrictions like night curfew (10 pm to 4 am), and Sunday lockdown would continue to be on.

Groceries and all other kinds of retail outlets may continue to operate as usual and department stores could function without using airconditioning facility and by sticking to the "50 percent" customer capacity norm.

The state government had announced the reintroduction of curbs like permission only for 50 percent seating capacity in cinemas from 10 April and days ago it postponed Class 12 public examination and came up with complete lockdown on Sundays and night curfew from 10 pm to 4 am, effective 20 April as virus cases continued to surge.

Tamil Nadu on Saturday continued to witness a rise in new COVID-19 infections with 14,842 pushing the caseload to 10,66,329 while 80 fatalities took the toll to 13,475, said the Health Department.

Recoveries mounted to 9,52,186 with 9,142 patients being discharged, leaving 1,00,668 active infections. Till date, the State capital continued to constitute the bulk of the total cases accounting for 4,086 new infections, totalling 3,05,570.