Madurai to ban unvaccinated people from entering public places

The Madurai district of Tamil Nadu has decided to ban unvaccinated residents from entering 18 public places, including markets, hotels, shopping malls, movie theatres, hotels, marriage halls, TASMAC and PDS shops.According to District Collector Dr S Aneesh Sekhar, ban will be effective for such people from December 12. The district administration has said that people are being given one week's time to at least get one dose of the Covid vaccine, before the restrictions come into effect. Nearly 3 lakh people in Madurai have not received a single dose of the Covid vaccine, the district collector said. "In Madurai district, 71.6 per cent of people have been vaccinated with the first dose and 32.8 per cent have been vaccinated with the second dose. There are 3 lakh people who have not been vaccinated after the second deadline," he said.

On November 18, Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine under the Tamil Nadu Public Health Act, 1939 had issued a circular making Covid vaccination mandatory to enter public places. These were atteibuted to be measures undertaken to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The state recorded 711 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, taking Tamil Nadu's tally to 27,29,061. The death count rose to 36,513 with 9 more Covid-related deaths on Friday. Chennai and Coimbatore accounted for the majority of new infections with 128 and 127 cases respectively, while the remaining was scattered across other districts.