TN exhausts stock, vaccination halted today after Sunday’s 1.6m inoculations

Previously on September 12, again a Sunday, Tamil Nadu conducted a 12-hour mega vaccination drive, and managed to inoculate 2.89 million people. At that time, the state had 2.9 million doses in hand and had conducted the drive across 40,000 camps

Tamil Nadu inoculated at least 1.6 million people as of 8pm on Sunday, thereby exhausting its vaccine stock for a second time this month. “The vaccines in our hand are over, so tomorrow no facility will be able to conduct vaccination ,” health minister M Subramanian said on Sunday evening. “We request that people who have registered to receive a vaccine tomorrow not to go to camps... We hope we will receive more vaccines from the Centre tomorrow so that the process can be re-started.”

A healthcare worker inoculates a beneficiary with a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. (File photo)

Previously on September 12, again a Sunday, Tamil Nadu conducted a 12-hour mega vaccination drive, and managed to inoculate 2.89 million people. At that time, the state had 2.9 million doses in hand and had conducted the drive across 40,000 camps.

This time it had half the number of vaccine doses (about 1.1 million of Covishield and 500,000 of Covaxin) and the state held only 20,000 camps with the target of administering 1.5 million doses. The state health department is distributing vaccines to all districts based on their population and vaccination performance indicators. There is a special focus along the nine districts bordering Kerala which is witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases and is also dealing with Nipah and Zika, putting Tamil Nadu on alert.

Though Tamil Nadu’s tally is hovering around 1,500-1,600 new cases daily, 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 10 million people. Since January, government facilities alone have vaccinated more than 40 million people. “We are slated to receive the next batch of vaccines only on September 22 but we have approached the Centre to send us supplies 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 peaked. But vaccination numbers were still low. July onwards, there has been a steady supply of vaccines from the Centre.