Special Nodal Officer for Chennai's Coronavirus taskforce J Radhakrishnan said that the city would see a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases at least for the next five to six days. His statement has come when the city has already been witnessing the sharpest rise in the cases each day amid the restrictions. 

While addressing the reporters on Sunday, Radhakrishnan said that the health department has been focused on the targeted testing of COVID-19 due to which the cases would increase in the city. He stated that the health department has been executing targeted testing in Chennai for the past nine days. 

The Koyambedu cluster and North Chennai cluster had seen targeted testing and the increase in the testing has been contributing to the rise in the number of affected cases. The bureaucrat has highlighted that Tamil Nadu is the only state in the country doing the highest number of COVID-19 tests.

Radhakrishnan further stated that only two wards out of 200 wards in Chennai have more than 300 cases and 119 wards of the city have less than 10 cases while 60 other wards have reported 10-30 COVID-19 cases. He divulged that the city has 32 COVID-Care centers in which over 750 people are getting treated. On Monday, the state would see the resumptions of the standalone shops and tea stalls.

The state government has, on Saturday, permitted the tea stalls and standalone shops to resume its services from Monday and this order won't apply for the containment zones. The tea stalls can only sell the parcels and must ensure that they maintain the social distancing norms. As it was speculated that there would be an increase in the people's movement in Chennai and the state, Chennai Corporation Commissioner Prakash, who was also present in the press-briefing, appealed to the people not to get panic.

Prakash stated that the health department will be able to eradicate the transmission if it carries out more testings to identify the persons. According to the reports, Tamil Nadu has reported the highest testing numbers in the country. As of Sunday, the state has tested 2,43,037 samples so far including 13,367 that were tested on Sunday alone. 

On Sunday, Tamil Nadu has reported 669 fresh cases taking the total number of affected cases to 7,204. Of these 669, 590 belong to Chennai which is the highest-single day rise recorded by the city so far and as of Sunday, the city has reported 3,839 cases so far.