Students to be inoculated at schools in a month

Chief Minister MK Stalin will inaugurate the vaccination drive among students at a camp to be held at Govt Girls High School, Porur on January 3

CHENNAI: The State government is planning to vaccinate all students aged between 15 and 18 during working days in the schools, so that within a month itself all eligible students will be vaccinated against COVID-19, said Health Minister Ma Subramanian after inspecting a containment zone at Ashok Nagar on Wednesday.

The minister also informed that the 17th mega vaccination camp will be conducted on Sunday, January 2, which will have 1,600 camps in Chennai.

“More than 10 people have tested positive 19 in Ashok Nagar 19th Street after testing 83 people from that particular street, marked as containment zone. As virus cases are increasing gradually in Chennai, the Greater Chennai Corporation has set up 500 beds at COVID Care Centres in three places — Tondiarpet 300 beds; and Manjampakkam and Injambakkam 100 beds each,” said Ma Subramanian.

Also, during the second wave, around 800 beds with oxygen support were put up at the Trade Centre.

Meanwhile, the testing has increased from 15,000 to 23,000 on Tuesday, and it is further expected to rise.

The minister said around 33.20 lakh children aged 15–18 are eligible for COVID vaccination and that Chief Minister MK Stalin will inaugurate the vaccination camp at Government Girls High School, Porur on January 3.

So far, the National Institute of Virology, Pune confirmed 45 Omicron cases in

Tamil Nadu, including 11 cases on Tuesday, of which only 16 patients are under treatment at various hospitals. All these patients were asymptomatic and nobody required oxygen as they are fully vaccinated. The State has sent at least 129 S-gene drop samples for testing.

“TN now has 86 per cent vaccinated for the first dose, while 56.28 per cent has received the second dose. Seven districts have less than 50 per cent vaccination performance — Ranipet, Tenkasi, Mayiladathurai, Tirupatthur, Theni, Tirunelveli, and Dharmapuri — and the respective Collectors are instructed to inoculate more people,” said the minister.