Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami has said that flattening the COVID-19 curve in Chennai has become a huge challenge for the government as the city's tally is surging amid the lockdown with two-thirds of the total cases reported in the state so far.

The Chief Minister has convened the virtual meeting with the district collectors on Friday to strategize the road ahead for the state after the current spell of the lockdown which hits its deadline on Sunday - May 31st. During the meeting, the Chief Minister stated that containing the spread in Chennai is a challenge while the spread is getting curbed in rest of the districts in the state and his statement has signaled that any further relaxations for Chennai are less likely.

By attributing the spike in Chennai to the congested and dense population of the city, Edappadi Palaniswami has advised the district collectors not to pour more relaxations in their respective districts without acquiring consent from the Chief Secretary of the government. He highlighted that the sudden jump of the cases was due to the influx of people from other regions, mostly from COVID-19 hit states. 

The Chief Minister further instructed the collectors to stay vigil and cautious about the influx and ensure that all the returnees are tested effectively. By iterating people not to get panic, he said that the state has a recovery rate of 54% and the government would be resuming more economic activities across the state in upcoming days. According to the Chief Minister, the state government has transported over 2.40 lakh migrant workers to their home states through Shramik special trains so far. 

The reports close to the developments indicated that the lockdown will likely be extended in Tamil Nadu after May 31st and the relaxations will be provided with accord to the current state of the spread, suggestions from the expert committee, and district collectors, and guidelines and advisories from the Central government. 

According to the reports, the Chief Minister would be convening another round of meeting with the medical expert committee on Saturday -May 30, to acquire their suggestions on the lockdown extension and rolling out containment strategies to curb the spread amid the relaxations. He held a meeting with the committee on Tuesday during which the committee advised the government to ramp up COVID-19 testing across the state to identify the infections and carriers at an early stage.

On Friday, the state had seen the highest single-day spike in the cases as it has reported 874 cases and the current tally stands at 20,246 cases which is the second-highest number in India after Maharashtra. The state has also reported 765 discharges through which the total number of discharges stands at 11,313 so far. As of Friday, Chennai has reported 13,362 and 113 deaths so far.

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