With Tamil Nadu witnessing a sharp increase in the covid-19 cases, the government on Saturday announced clamping a two-week “total lockdown” across the state to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Chief Minister M K Stalin said in a statement that the lockdown was being enforced due to “unavoidable reasons” and pointed out that the decision was taken based on inputs received at a review meeting he had with district collectors on Friday, besides consultations with medical experts, PTI reported.

“The total lockdown will be enforced from 4 am on May 10 to 4 am on May 24,” he said. Tamil Nadu saw 26,465 new coronavirus cases on Friday, pushing the caseload to 13.23 lakh while a record 197 deaths in the last 24 hours took the toll to 15,171.

According to the health department, the active cases stood at 1,35,355.