Vaccine Apathy Among People In Tamil Nadu As Covid Cases Dip

Number of fresh cases reported in a day in the state has come down from 36,000 in May to less than 2,000 recently. 

Tamil Nadu health secretary J Radhakrishnan

Chennai: Following a drastic dip in the number of Covid-19 cases reported in a day, Tamil Nadu has started to face the vaccination apathy among the public, said a report. Number of fresh cases reported in a day in the state has come down from 36,000 in May to less than 2,000 recently. 

According to a NDTV report, the state has administered over 4 lakh doses as on Monday and its daily average in the last week is 2.23 lakh doses. While about 37% of the population has taken one dose of the vaccination, only 8.2% of the population has taken both the doses and it is less than the national average. Even though the state has the capacity to vaccinate about 8 lakh people in a day, it has been inoculating only 5 lakh people per day. 

Quoting the state health secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan, the report said that the vaccine apathy started to germinate the moment the number of Covid-19 cases reported in the state has started to fall. “Now supply is not an issue. If we get greater supplies, we will be able to plan further," the report quoted the health secretary. 

The report further said that as far as the vaccination rate is considered, Chennai is ahead of the rest of the state and to ensure the vulnerable population gets the vaccination, the Greater Chennai Corporation is reaching out to 22 lakh people who are residing in slum areas. 

Quoting Dr CT Shanthi, zonal medical officer, the report said that they had fixed a target of inoculating about 600 to 700 people every day from slum areas. 

Speaking about the preparations that are being made for the third wave, the health secretary told NDTV that they have kept 1.75 lakh beds and 75,000 oxygen beds ready and about 20 to 25% of the beds are earmarked for paediatric care.