As the state of Tamil Nadu is just three days away from hitting the deadline of the current phase of the lockdown, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami has convened the meeting with the District Collectors and higher officials on Wednesday and he would be taking stock of the COVID-19 situation in the districts and would take the final call of pouring more relaxations. 

According to reports, the Chief Minister has convened the meeting with the Collectors through video conferencing and would review the COVID-19 preventive measures and management. This review meeting would hold significance as it has come days ahead of the Diwali festival, which would pose a huge challenge for the state government to mitigate and curb the spread of the pandemic and to trace the contacts. 

The meeting would have various issues on the fray of discussions like working out to create awareness to the public to avoid large scale gathering during the festive season, installing more fever camps, adequate infrastructure in the COVID-19 care centers, standard operating procedures for treatment, and giving priority to elders and people with comorbidities for testing. 

Along with these issues, the Chief Minister has been expected to discuss with the collectors about the preparatory measures to check communicable diseases, the northeast monsoon, restoration of water bodies, and one of the larger questions that has been surfaced around him is whether he would permit the resumption of the theaters, schools, and colleges. 

On the restrictions front, theaters, recreational clubs, schools, colleges, and other educational institutions have been under shut down since March and when the Central government and some of the other states had resumed the theaters as part of the unlocking process, Tamil Nadu is one of the key states that didn't permit the resumption of the theaters, cinema halls, schools, and colleges as the sequel of the rapid spread of the COVID-19 viral infection. 

As the state has been reporting a decline in the number of fresh cases for the past few days, it has been expected that the theaters will end its long shut down and would open for the audiences on the verge of the festive season. The Central government had consented to the resumption of the theaters with a 50% seating capacity. However, the Tamil Nadu government had refrained from permitting the resumption of the theaters. 

The Chief Minister was piled up with the requests from the theater owners to resume the theaters and the reports say that he would be taking the final call on the resumption after discussing with the collectors and higher authorities. Along with the discussion of resuming the theaters, the Chief Minister will also be discussing about the resumption of suburban train services in Chennai, which currently runs to transport the staff connected to the essential services.

The Chief Minister had already written to the Union Railways minister concerning the resumption of the suburban train services. It has been expected that the state government would roll out the measures to prevent the spread during the festive season along with some relaxations. Along with the Chief Minister, the Deputy Chief Minister, cabinet ministers, Chief Secretary, high ranking police officials, and secretaries of key departments have been attending the meeting.

Following the meeting with the Collectors, the Chief Minister will be meeting the health experts at 2.30 pm to seek their advice regarding the COVID-19 preventive measures and containment plans for the state ahead of the festive season. Following the meetings, the Chief Minister is expected to issue fresh guidelines for November. According to the state health department, Tamil Nadu has reported 7,14,235 positive cases so far as of Tuesday of which 27,734 are active, 6,75,518 have been discharged, and 10, 983 had succumbed to the viral infection.