The Tamil Nadu Government has enhanced penalties for violation of the mandatory safety protocols. It comes in the wake of the opening of almost all economic activities and intra-state travel. Meanwhile, the total caseload of COVID-19 infection in the state has surged to over 4,51,000 with 5,976 people tested positive yesterday. The new cases include 992 in Chennai. The active caseload remains stable at about 51,600.

The Unlock-4 removes almost all the restrictions in Tamil Nadu to help the public to resume their economic activities. However, it also necessitates ensuring compliance of the safety protocols and the standard operating procedures so that the pandemic situation does not go out of hands.

Keeping this in mind, the penalty for not wearing a mask while coming out has been enhanced to two hundred rupees. A government order issued yesterday says non-observance of social distancing, spitting in public places and failure to follow guidelines in containment zones by individuals will attract a fine of 500 rupees.

Violations by commercial establishments and entry of vehicles in containment zones will attract a penalty of five thousand rupees. The increased penalty is aimed at ensuring public safety, say the authorities, as lowering the bar on safety precautions would perhaps be self-deceptive.

Meanwhile, Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar has said that the State will soon conduct one lakh COVID tests per day. Inaugurating a molecular lab in Hoskote today, he said in just six months, the State has opened 108 new COVID testing labs and the tests have increased from 300 per day to about 75,000 tests. He further added that the death rate in the State has been 1.65 per cent and efforts are on to bring it down to less than one per cent. He felt a need to conduct a study of the medical education system in developed nations to improve the quality of the medical education system in the country. He also suggested that medical students should be sent to clinical expo abroad for exposure to new findings and practices in the field of medicine.

In the other news updateit was reported In Telangana, 2,511 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported during the past 24 hours taking the total number of cases reported so far in the state to one lakh 38 thousand 395. The state also increased its daily COVID tests to over 62,000 yesterday.

The recovery rate also slightly improved to 75.5 per cent with 2,579 more persons recovering during the last 24 hours. This took the number of recovered people so far in the state to one lakh four thousand 603. The state reported improvement in recovery rate to 75.5 per cent from 73 per cent last week against the national rate of 77.24 per cent.

Meanwhile, the number of new COVID-19 cases being reported every day in Hyderabad came down a bit and 305 cases reported during the past 24 hours.

As per the daily bulletin issued by the State Medical and Health Department this morning, Medchal Malkajgiri, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Karimnagar, Khammam districts also reported about hundred new COVID cases each during the same period.