At a time when a six-member expert team from the Centre reached Kerala to study the spiralling COVID-19 cases, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state has the capacity to administer COVID-19 vaccine to one crore people every month and will urge the Centre to provide more vaccines.
Kerala on Friday administered COVID-19 vaccine to 5.05 lakh people in a single day. State Health Minister Veena George said that 5,04,755 people in the state have been vaccinated on Friday, with 3,41,753 given the first dose and 1,63,002 the second dose. The Chief Minister said that as many as 25 lakh doses of the COVID-19 vaccine can be given per week.
"Going by the pace of vaccination our health infrastructure can undertake, one crore doses per month can be given. Kerala will approach the Centre to provide more vaccines," Pinarayi Vijayan said. Sharing details about the vaccination, the Health Minister's office said, "A total of 1,97,76,427 people have been vaccinated so far in the state, including the first dose for 1,38,07,878 people and the second dose for 59,68,549 people."
According to Health Department, vaccination was carried out in 1,753 vaccination centres on Friday.
"There were 1,498 centres at the government level and 255 centres in private. Thiruvananthapuram district topped the list with 99,802 people vaccinated. In Thrissur district, 52,123 people were vaccinated. Ernakulam, Kozhikode and Kannur districts have vaccinated more than 40,000 people," as per the media bulletin issued by state's Health Department.
A six-member central team of experts arrived in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday night. "There are many concerns, rise in positivity rate is one. Cases are declining everywhere and transmission is continuing in Kerala. Let us discuss this with the state. It is a comprehensive situation, let us see how things unfold," said Dr SK Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), who is a part of the team.
On Friday, Kerala reported 20,772 new COVID-9 cases, 14,651 recoveries and 116 deaths over a span of 24 hours. The positivity rate stood at 13.61 per cent. Presently, the state has 1,60,824 active cases. Since the onset of the pandemic last year, 31,92,104 have recovered from the disease and 16,701 have succumbed to the virus.
