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TN vaccinates 1.6 million in a day, halts drive after running out of stock
In Chennai, vaccination was conducted in streets, beaches, shopping malls and public spaces. Simultaneously home vaccination for senior citizens above the age of 80 and people with disabilities also continued. Stalin inspected the drive in Chennai.
For the second time, Tamil Nadu conducted a large-scale vaccination camp and inoculated 1.6 million people as of 8 pm, thereby exhausting its vaccine stock with nothing left for Monday. “The vaccines in our hand are over, so tomorrow no facility will be able to conduct vaccination tomorrow,” health minister M Subramanian informed on Sunday evening.
“We request that people who have registered to receive a vaccine tomorrow not go to camps so that you aren’t cheated or dejected. We hope we will receive more vaccines from the union government tomorrow, and we will immediately distribute it to re-start vaccination.”
In Chennai, vaccination was conducted in streets, beaches, shopping malls and public spaces. Simultaneously home vaccination for senior citizens above the age of 80 and people with disabilities also continued. Stalin inspected the drive in Chennai.
Previously on September 12, a Sunday, Tamil Nadu had conducted a 12-hour mega vaccination drive on Sunday that surpassed its target to inoculate 20-lakh people, with 2.9 million people receiving a shot against the Covid-19 disease. At that time, the state had 2.9 million vaccines in hand and had conducted the drive across 40,000 camos. Tamil Nadu had hoped they could pitch this achievement to the union government to increase the supply of vaccines but that did not happen.
This time it had only half the number of vaccine doses (about 11-lakh of Covishield and 5-lakh of Covaxin), and the state conducted only 20,000 camps, and the target was to administer vaccines to 1.5 million people. Last week, Subramanian had written to the union health minister, Mansukh Mandaviya seeking additional vaccines. He sought 5 million more vaccines for the past week--five-lakh vaccines a day for six days and 20-lakh for the mega drive on Sunday. The state health department is distributing vaccines to all districts based on their population and vaccination performance indicators. There is also a special focus along the 9 districts bordering Kerala which is seeing a high number of Covid-19 cases and is also dealing with Nipah and Zika, putting Tamil Nadu on alert. Tamil Nadu however is hovering around 1500-1600 new cases of Covid-19 daily but officials do not want to let their guard down. “Vaccination is the only way to prevent a third wave,” said health secretary J Radhakrishnan. “As of today, in September alone we have crossed the milestone of vaccinating one-crore people. Since January, government facilities alone have vaccinated more than 4-crore people, added. “We are slated to receive the next batch of vaccines only on the 22nd, but we have approached the union government to send us supplies immediately tomorrow,” Radhakrishnan told reporters on Sunday. “But this is a good position to be in. From January to March, when we have vaccine stocks, the public wasn’t coming forward to take it. We have also asked for more vaccines based on our higher population as compared to the other states.”
Tamil Nadu’s vaccination story started from absolute hesitancy due to fear of side effects, among other factors. The perception began to change only during May and June when the second wave of Covid-19 had peaked, and the state was under duress much like other regions due to a shortage in medical oxygen. But vaccination numbers were still low but this time officials said that it was due to a shortage in supply. But from July onwards, there has been a steady supply of vaccines from the union government.
