Follow COVID guidelines and save lives, Stalin appeals to people

CHENNAI: CM-elect and DMK president MK Stalin on Tuesday urged the people to strictly follow the latest guidelines issued by the state with regard to lockdown restrictions.

“People have to realise that the spread of the second wave of coronavirus is higher than the first one in terms of both in the number of increasing cases as well as deaths,” he said in a statement. Stalin’s statement came after he held a meeting with high-level government officials.

Stating that reports from other states with regard to the deaths due to coronavirus looks frightening, the DMK leader said, “people should not only be cautious and careful, but also they need to take extra care continuously. Keeping this in mind only the state government had imposed further lockdown restrictions.”

Stalin said that as the government issued fresh lockdown restrictions from May 6 to May 20, which instructed the government and private companies to function only with 50 per cent of staff, people should follow proper social distancing while commuting to offices.

“All these lockdown restrictions were imposed to benefit the people and therefore, there should be cooperation among them to break this coronavirus chain,” he said adding “without valid reasons people should not venture out and if there is a necessity, they need to wear facemasks and adopt social distancing.”

Earlier, Stalin asked Chief Secretary Rajeev Ranjan to send IAS officers appointed as monitoring officers, to the respective districts they were assigned for.

After winning the Assembly elections, Stalin for the second straight day held a review meeting with Chief Secretary, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, Secretaries of other departments and police officials. In the meeting, Stain asked the officials to ensure that all the guidelines issued by the state government to restrict the spread of COVID-19 should be enforced strictly.