Almost 99 percent of the entire Nilgiris district’s eligible population for the COVID-19 vaccine, has received their second dose and are fully vaccinated, said Nilgiris district collector, S.P. Amrith on Monday.
While the entire population in the district was deemed to have gotten the first dose of the vaccine in August of last year, around 99 percent of the more than 5.3 lakh eligible persons had received both doses of the vaccine now, officials from the Health Department said. Possibly as a consequence of being vaccinated, very few of the people who are testing positive for COVID-19 are requiring hospitalization they added.
In fact, the Nilgiris Collector clarified on Monday that though 1,413 people were recovering from COVID-19 on Monday, only 26 people are currently in hospital requiring treatment, while 900 people are in COVID-care centers. He said that though the number of infections being recorded every day is quite high, with an average of more than 400 cases being recorded in the last week each day, most people have very mild symptoms or are asymptomatic.
The Collector also said that students eligible for the vaccine are being encouraged by the School Education Department to get vaccinated. As a section of the students studying in the Nilgiris are students of residential schools, they have left for their hometowns. The School Education Department was reaching out to them to get vaccinated prior to their return to the Nilgiris, the Collector said. Meanwhile, 9,000 eligible people, including frontline workers have received their booster dose of the vaccine, he added.
Teams of police as well as personnel from the Health Department have been posted at eight interstate check-posts to ensure that people traveling to the Nilgiris have been fully vaccinated and do not have any symptoms associated with COVID-19.