Corpn begins inoculating poll officials

On the first-day vaccination camp held in a railway office on Walltax Road, Southern Railway staff took the vaccine jabs. “The city has around 35,000 polling personnel. Vaccinating polling personnel will be completed in a week,” Chennai Corporation Commissioner and district election officer G Prakash said. 

When asked whether e-pass relaxations would be introduced, Prakash clarified that it would be introduced if other states expedited the vaccination drive. 

“Around 52 per cent of people in Chennai have immunity against the disease. The public should wear masks and other precautions for the next two months,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Corporation data shows that more than 1.44 lakh took COVID vaccine till Sunday. Of the total, 1.39 lakh took Covishield and 4,578 persons took Covaxin. 

The data also suggest that the 50,658 persons, who took the first dose, are persons above 60 years of age. As many as 17,418 persons were aged between 45 years and 59 years with comorbid conditions. 

It may be noted that of the 1.44 lakh persons, who took the first dose, only 14,968 took the second dose, which is around 10 per cent. As per the recommendations, persons taking the vaccine should take a second dose in 28 days. 

As the number of persons taking vaccines is lesser in the city, the civic body has directed the sanitary inspectors to increase the number of vaccinations to 35,000 per day. 

“Domestic Breeding Checkers (Malaria workers) have been told to implore the residents to take the vaccine. The workers should maintain a registry with the details of persons, whom they convinced to take the vaccine. If the workers fail to bring more persons to the camps, they will be pulled up,” a sanitary inspector said.