The residents of Chennai had wakened up on Saturday with the sudden commitment of rushing to the stores and markets to pile up the stocks and essentials as the Chennai corporation would be going under tight and complete shutdown from 6 am on April 26th (Sunday) to 9 pm on April 29th (Wednesday) to contain the spread of Coronavirus. 

The corporations of Chennai, Coimbatore, and Madurai would go under complete shutdown for the four days from 26th to 29th while the corporations of Salem and Tirupur would face complete lockdown for three days from 26th to 28th by letting the movements of extremely essential services. The announcement of tightening the lockdown was made by the Chief Minister on Friday.

As per the fresh directions, the retail shops, groceries would completely remain closed in these corporations in the said days and people of these regions can only purchase vegetables and groceries in the wholesale markets and the pushcarts arranged by the city corporations and once the announcement has been made public, people in these cities rushed to the markets to pile up the essentials to settle down for the enhanced lockdown. 

The sudden ban and arresting the time limits of the functioning of the essentials had spurred panic among people and thousands of people started thronging the markets at the same time that exemplified how the sudden ban and panic have ended the guidelines of social distancing. Some people stood with the masks while some didn't and the visuals from Chennai had turned the empty streets into eerie over-crowded bazaars. 

The people have raced up to bag the essentials amid the crowds and the stocks in most of the stores got over in a short time. On Saturday, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority had issued a press release in which it called the people not to be panic and clarified that the vegetable shops would remain open from Sunday to Wednesday. According to the reports, the grocery stores that sell the vegetables would be closed. 

Earlier on Saturday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister said that the shops would be functioning till 3 pm on Saturday in all these five corporations so that the people can make necessary arrangements. According to the enhanced lockdown, extremely essential services including hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, and ambulances would be permitted and commercial activities and movements of people would be highly restricted. The restaurants in these corporations are permitted to deliver food at the doorstep of the customers and can only accept the orders through phone calls. 

Amma Canteens and ATMs can function normally so are the government departments like health and family welfare, police, electricity, Aavin Milk, local administrative bodies, water distribution, revenue, and disaster management. Through the enhanced lockdown, the government aims to control the increase of the containment zones in these five corporations as these have been emerging as hotspots for the virus with the most number of cases in the state.