Tamil Nadu gears up for Covid vaccine rollout

Tamil Nadu is all geared up to rollout the Covid-19 vaccine programme, with the first shot expected in Madurai on January 16, to be launched by Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

The State, on Monday, received the first lot of 59 boxes of Covishield vaccine that landed at Chennai airport from Pune, with each box containing 1,200 vials. The vaccines will be stored at the State Vaccine Store on the premises of the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services.

Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said the State has been allotted 5.56 lakh doses of Covid-19 vaccines – 5.36 lakh doses of Covishield and 20,000 doses of Covaxin.

Around 2,000 vaccine centres were readied in the State with the vaccine to be administered in two doses.

Priority

State Health Minister C Vijayabaskar said that necessary steps have been taken to administer the vaccine at 307 locations across the State. Six lakh frontline warriors have been identified and pre-registered, he told media.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to reopen schools only for class 10 and 12 students from January 19. However, no more than 25 students will be allowed in a class, and standard operating procedure will be followed, said Chief Minister K Palaniswami in a statement.

To boost immunity levels, students attending the schools will be provided with vitamin and zinc tablets. The State, on December 28, had discussed with district collectors, medical experts and parents between January 6 and 8 on reopening schools. Taking into consideration their opinions, and the future of the students, it was decided to reopen schools for class 10 and 12, the release said.

Schools in Tamil Nadu have been shut from March 25, 2020. The number of coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu has been declining steadily in the last couple of months.

Covid-19 cases

On Tuesday, 671 cases were reported, to take the total number of infections in the State to 8,27,614. After 827 Covid-19 patients were discharged, the number of active cases declined to 6,807. There were eight deaths and 60,563 samples tested. In Chennai, there were 194 cases, according to data from the State health ministry.