Chennai lockdown news: Today's updates

As the Central and state governments allow phase-wise relaxation in curbs to get the life up and running again following over two months of lockdown to prevent the spread of Covid-19, we bring you the latest updates from your city.
*Update at 5.15pm: Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswami on Saturday announced that the state government would bear the higher education expenses of a salon owner's daughter in Madurai who was lauded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his Covid-19 relief work.
*Update at 4.15pm: Three new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Puducherry on Saturday, taking the overall tally of infections in the union territory to 107.
*Since the last few weeks, general outpatients have started returning in numbers for routine check-ups at eye hospitals in Madurai. Despite lockdown relaxations, so far, according to various eye-care hospitals, the outpatient numbers are still just about half the usual numbers.
*PTI update at 12.13pm: The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday capped the charges for Covid-19 treatment in private hospitals across the state and announced that no fee over and above the fixed slab can be claimed from patients.
*Update at 10.57am: Fifteen more children at government reception home in Chennai's Rayapuram test Covid-19 positive, taking the total number of the children infected to 43.
*Twenty-five highend motorcycles fitted with disinfectant tanks will be used to cleanse narrow streets across containment zones in Chennai.
*Update at 9.21am: India registers record single-day spike of 9,887 Covid cases and 294 deaths, pushing infection tally to 2,36,657, death toll to 6,642, reports PTI quoting Union govt
*At least 62.5 per cent of police personnel have been treated for Covid-19 at the IIT-Madras and have returned to work to their parent unit in Chennai city police.
*ANI update: Hotels/restaurants gear up to resume operations in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore from June 8. Gurumurthy, of RHR hotel says, "We'll use only 50% seating capacity, we're providing partition b/w tables. We'll use leaves to serve customers, that is disposable. Customers will be screened."


*Four judges of the Madras high court have tested positive for Covid-19 and will be out of action for at least a couple of weeks. The court will go back to ‘restrictive hearing’ by limited benches strictly through videoconferencing.
*The Greater Chennai Corporation plans to buy more bicycles and e-bikes so that you can use them to commute from one part of the city to the other, instead of using crowded public transport, and thus reduce transmission of the coronavirus. This follows a Union ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs advisory to metro cities to opt for environmentfriendly non-motorised transport to ferry people to offices and educational institutions.
Next time you drop in a neighbourhood library, the visit may be limited to collecting books reserved for you. The pandemic has changed the experience of readers associated with private libraries as such institutions are gradually reopening. Private libraries are beginning to introduce dial-a-book system or reserve-titles-online method whereby a member can call a library and reserve a book or visit the institution’s portal online to reserve a title. Later, the member can pick up the books at counters and need not have to spend more time on library premises. The outbreak of pandemic has brought in new challenges to ensure the safety of readers.
*The Coimbatore police have distributed four lakh food packets to guest workers during the lockdown. City police commissioner Sumit Sharan said, “People from across the country approached us through our Twitter handle with a request to help the stranded guest workers. We subsequently formed six mobile teams to supply food packets to them. Handling them was a big task for us.”
*Ariyalur district in Tamil Nadu, which was hit by Covid-19 due to the Koyambedu cluster and recuperating slowly after having discharged 96% of the patients in the past month, is facing yet another challenge from the fresh influx of people returning from hotspots.