Covid vaccination in Chennai: Healthcare workers first, those above 70 will be third in line 

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation has identified about 60,000 healthcare workers in the city who will be given the Covid-19 vaccination shot on top priority. 

Addressing media persons at Ripon Building, Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said the civic body has identified close to 60,000 healthcare workers including doctors, nurses, ward boys and technicians. 

"These numbers may go up to even one lakh in the coming days as there are close to 5000 healthcare facilities in the city of various capacity. We have set up a separate desk for this work at Ripon Building," he said. 

He said that after healthcare workers, it will be Corporation staff and police personnel who would be the next in line. 

"We already have the database of these people. So, it would be provided fully to the health department," he said, adding that elderly people above 70 would be third in line. 

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"Due to our door-to-door field screening and fever checks since March, by now, we may fully have all the details of elderly and comorbid people in the city, street wise. This list too would be ready," he said. 

Prakash added that the door-to-door survey staff has been reduced to 8,000 from 12,000.

"The need for door-to-door checks is becoming lesser. We may reduce the numbers further," he said. 

Chennai has been recording less than 400 cases daily with a positivity rate of two percent, said Prakash, adding that the goal was to further reduce the test positivity through active screening. 

Presently, the active Covid-19 cases in the city are at one percent while about 97 percent patients have been discharged. 

Out of the 2,18,856 total cases, 3242 are undergoing treatment.