Amid the floating speculations on whether the statewide lockdown would be extended after April 14th, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami said that the final decision on extending the embargo and the restriction would be taken as per the inputs and reports disclosed by the medical committee formed by the state government.

While addressing the reporters, after chairing the meet with the state-level committees, at the Secretariat on Thursday, the Chief Minister said that the state has been reporting more cases affected by the virus each day and the government has installed a medical committee consists of 19 members and this committee would be disclosing the reports of the developments based on which the state government would be deciding on the lockdown and its extension. Along with the medical committee, the government has formed 12 separate committees comprising of top authorities which will also be working towards analyzing the lockdown.

The Chief Minister revealed that the state may hit the third stage as the pandemic has chances of reaching the next stage, which is the community spread. The state currently travels at the second stage and he asserted that the government has been gripping up the preventive measures and mechanisms to prevent the state from getting into the third stage.

He stated the government has placed an order to procure four lakh rapid tests from Chennai and of four lakh, 50,000 kits would be delivered on Thursday night after which it would be dispersed to the districts to carry out the tests. The government would be testing the family members of the affected patients and following that, the people who have come into direct contact with the positive cases would be put through tests and the people residing in the areas of the positive cases would also be taken for testing.

He further stated that along with four lakh kits, the Central government has pledged to dispatch 20,000 kits to the state which would be arriving tomorrow. He highlighted that the state has placed orders to purchase 2500 more ventilators and the state has already been equipped with 3371 ventilators to treat the patients and the hospitals have been prepared with 14,525 beds. Along with briefing the state on the latest developments on combating the virus, the Chief Minister has also announced aid relief package and welfare schemes.

According to the reporters, he said that the government would be providing an assistance of Rs 1000 to the workers belong to 12 welfare boards including khadi workers, small traders, folk artists, film industry workers, temple priests, firework factory workers, transgender welfare board and this welfare scheme would be directly benefitting 8.2 lakh workers in the state and added that over 1.93 ration cardholders have been given with Rs 1000 assistance.

The Tamil Nadu police department has collected Rs 40 lakh so far as a penalty from violators for violating the curfew that has been imposed under section 144, he added. Earlier on Thursday, he chaired the meeting with the Chief Secretary, Health Secretary, and Revenue Secretary, and top officials of the state-level committees and he took stock of the current state of the virus spread in Tamil Nadu.