Chennai: The response to the Covid-19 vaccination drive on day one was poor in Tamil Nadu with only 16.8% of health workers and healthcare providers taking the shot on Saturday.
According to the health dept data, only 2,783 doctors and workers took the vaccine though the state had made arrangements to vaccinate 16,600 persons at the rate of 100 in each of the 166 centres in Tamil Nadu.
In the morning, CM Edappadi K Palaniswami had sought to assure the vaccine was safe when he declared he and his family too would take the vaccine in due course. Health secretary J Radhakrishnan too said he would take the vaccine in the next round, as this phased was meant to cover the frontline health care workers.
Prominent doctors at both government and private hospitals were vaccinated at different centres but the response was cold.
All those, who were administered Covaxin, the indigenous vaccine, had to give an undertaking, saying they were aware the vaccine’s efficacy was yet to be established.
“Of all those who got vaccinated on the first day, only 99 of the 600, shortlisted for Covaxin, took the shot. As for Covishield, the imported vaccine, 2,684 of the slated 16,000 persons took it,” a health dept official said.
At two centres in Tirunelveli and Tiruchi, not a single person came forward to take Covaxin.
Chennai topped the list of cities in the state with 310 persons taking Covishield, while in Perambalur district only 2 persons came forward to take the vaccine shot.
