On Saturday, May 2, The Tamil Nadu Health Department announced that vaccination centres across the state will continue to function as usual, in spite of the Sunday lockdown in force. On April 25, the first Sunday after the lockdown was announced, the number of persons who got themselves vaccinated against the coronavirus dipped sharply due to the strict curbs in place.
According to a report in Puthiya Thalaimurai, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine Dr Selvavinayagam said that people above 45 years of age who want to get vaccinated can step out on Sundays to go to the vaccination centres for the inoculation. On April 25, only 10,553 persons got their vaccinations done in comparison to April 24, when 1,19,237 persons were vaccinated. Since movement of all private and public vehicles are banned on Sundays due to the lockdown, the number is expected to have slid down on April 25.
Meanwhile, the government of Tamil Nadu has not started the vaccination drive for those aged between 18 and 44 years of age as per the Union government directions, due to lack of vaccine stock. The state health secretary recently said that the government of Tamil Nadu has ordered 1.5 crore doses of vaccines and is yet to receive them. Given the vaccine shortage, many centres have started giving priority to those whose second doses of the vaccine against the coronavirus are pending.
On Saturday, May 1, 19,558 persons tested positive for the coronavirus in Tamil Nadu while 147 deaths were reported due to the infection. The state also tested 1,51,452 samples on Saturday. A total of 17,164 persons were discharged on Saturday following recovery from COVID-19. The number of persons currently being treated for COVID-19 in Tamil Nadu, including those in home isolation stands at 1,17,405. As of data from Saturday morning, India reported over four lakh fresh COVID-19 cases over 24 hours, with 3,523 fresh fatalities reported.