Covid Vaccination: 40 lakh people covered in Chittoor district

Tirupati: The Covid-19 vaccination process has been going on at a swift pace and so far 40 lakh people have been covered in Chittoor district. While about 25 lakh people were inoculated with the first dose, 15 lakh of them received both the doses till now.

The mega vaccination drive has been continuing in the district and on Tuesday the officials hade set a target of completing two lakh doses on a single day.

The mega drive was scheduled to be held at 160 sites in the district while the district administration has made elaborate arrangements to complete the target of two lakh doses. District Collector M Hari Narayanan held a teleconference with officials concerned on Monday and assigned them specific duties. He asked them to work in coordination to complete the process as per the set target.

District Immunisation Officer Dr C Hanumantha Rao said that by afternoon more than 71,000 shots were given to the eligible people and expressed hope of completing the remaining doses as well. However, as people became complacent on the dangers of Covid-19 with the cases going down significantly, officials seem to have been facing an uphill task of bringing them for vaccination.

Till a couple of months ago, people used to stand in long queue lines at vaccination centres in their eagerness to get vaccinated. Now, the scene is entirely different in which the ward/village volunteers, ANMs and other staff have to convince the majority of the beneficiaries to take their shots.

Meanwhile, the number of daily Covid positive cases has been gradually coming down in the district. During the last 10 days, the highest number of daily cases was 168 while 45 was the lowest. The total number of cases during the first 10 days of October was 1,097 as against 2,138 during the corresponding period in September.

So far, 2.45 lakh positive cases have been reported in Chittoor district since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 while currently the active cases stand at 1,140. Though the number of deaths has come down significantly in October, still with 1,926 total Covid deaths, the district was much ahead of other districts in the State followed by 1,399 in Krishna district.

A doctor commented that if people strictly adhere to Covid-19 appropriate behaviour particularly at temples and other busy areas, the cases may come down further. Needless to say, the TTD has made vaccination certificates of both doses mandatory to visit Tirumala or else a Covid-19 negative certificate tested within 72 hours of the date of darshan should be produced.

There is a need to implement the same in all other TTD temples and other government temples as well where physical distancing was completely ignored and many devotees were not even wearing the masks properly.