More than 80% of Kerala’s vaccine-eligible population have been administered with the first dose, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Wednesday, adding 32% of the eligible population has received both doses.
Addressing a press conference, Vijayan said his government is striving to ensure that all people above the age of 18 are given the first vaccine dose by the end of September and both doses in another two to three months.
Over 31.8 million doses have been administered in Kerala so far. In order to achieve the target of giving the first dose to all beneficiaries above 18 years by September, the state government in the first week of this month flagged a shortage of doses and urged the Centre to provide more for smooth continuation of the inoculation drive.
Speaking on the pandemic situation in Kerala, chief minister Vijayan also said during the press conference that there is an uptick in the number of Covid-19 patients who were getting hospitalised later after being infected and this situation is not heartening. He pointed out that a large percentage of the people who died due to the viral disease in Kerala did not take the vaccine. Vijayan urged those above 60 years to get themselves fully vaccinated as a significant number of people in this age group have not taken the jab yet.
Pointing out that people, despite being vaccinated, were testing positive for Covid-19, the chief minister said that such people might not be severely affected, they could pass on the virus to the unvaccinated. Hence, he urged the vaccinated people of the state to follow the Covid-appropriate behaviour including maintaining social distancing and wearing masks.
{{/usCountry}}Pointing out that people, despite being vaccinated, were testing positive for Covid-19, the chief minister said that such people might not be severely affected, they could pass on the virus to the unvaccinated. Hence, he urged the vaccinated people of the state to follow the Covid-appropriate behaviour including maintaining social distancing and wearing masks.
{{/usCountry}}After recording a little over 15,000 cases for the past two days, Kerala’s daily Covid tally went up again on Wednesday, as 17,681 people were detected Covid-19 positive, taking the caseload to 4,424,046, according to the state health department’s bulletin. The toll also increased on Wednesday as 208 patients succumbed to the viral disease, while 25,588 patients were discharged. The active cases in the state continued to remain below the 200,000-mark.
Even though the daily tally in Kerala has not peaked since the first week of September, when over 30,000 infections were being recorded in a single day, the situation still remains critical as the state is contributing the maximum towards the fresh infections being recorded across the country.
(With PTI inputs)