The Tamil Nadu government on Friday announced COVID-19 lockdown extension for two more weeks, till August 23 with new restrictions in place. The previous lockdown announced by the government will be enforced till 6 am on August 9. Most importantly, the government has said that schools will resume for classes 9 to 12 from September 1. Karnataka too made a similar annoucement on July 6 and has said schools will reopen for classes 10th onwards.
According to the government order released on Friday, the government has implemented a slew of new restrictions:
>> Religious places will be closed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
>> The government plans reopening of schools for classes 9 to 12 from September 1. The classes will function with 50 percent students following stern COVID-19 protocols.
>> With separate Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), Nursing, Medical and related colleges will be opened from August 16.
>> To avoid public gathering, the government has directed the local bodies of respective districts to arrange separate meat and fish stalls in large spaces.
>> District collectors must form micro containment zones in areas reporting multiple COVID-19 cases.
>> Lastly, as the COVID-19 cases have seen a marginal hike recently, the government has warned the public to follow all the protocols and warned shops and enterprises to follow SOPs.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu on August 5 recorded 1997 new COVID-19 cases. Among this Chennai recorded 196 cases, followed by Coimbatore which saw 220 new cases and Erode recorded 161 new cases. 33 new deaths were reported on Thursday.