Articles by News Desk

Vaccination slower than planned The COVID-19 vaccination drive was halted or slowed down in several city hospitals on Wednesday due to glitches in the Co-WIN app. Reports from the Jayanagar General Hospital indicated that vaccination could not take place on Tuesday and Wednesday as the portal did not permit the entry of names. Meanwhile, it was reported that the Bowring and Lady Curzon Medical College and Research Institute did not get the list of healthcare workers to be vaccinated from the State war room. There has been a heavy load on the server as all hospitals are entering data simultaneously.…

Will Covid-19 vaccination be administered to all at the same time? The Government has identified those who are most vulnerable to the infection and priority will be given to them.  Firstly to the healthcare workers and then to the frontline workers.In the second phase, the vaccine will be administered to those above 50 years and those below 50 years with a history of high blood pressure, heart ailments, diabetes and other comorbid conditions.Later, depending on the need, Covid-19 vaccination will be administered to others in a phased manner. The vaccine has been developed  in a very short time, is it…

GCC sacks temporary workers amid pandemic Around 500 temporary sanitary workers deployed for COVID-19 duty were sacked by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) last week. The termination of jobs comes after the civic body’s decision to outsource waste management in 11 of the 15 zones in Chennai. Due to the outsourcing, all the permanent sanitary workers and National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) workers were transferred to Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Anna Nagar zones, zones managed by the Corporation. Of this, the excess staff have been made redundant. There is an ongoing case on the issue at the Madras…

COVID vaccination underway Six health facilities in the city are primed for the COVID vaccination programme, inaugurated nation-wide by the Prime Minister today (January 16). The Victoria Hospital campus has 11 vaccination sites, St John’s Hospital nine, KC General Hospital three and CV Raman Hospital one. The other two are Jayanagar General Hospital and Mallasandra primary health centre. In all, there are 243 centres across the State where the initial phase of vaccinating healthcare workers will be carried out over a week. The chosen hospitals have also readied a separate ward to observe and treat severe allergic reactions, if any,…

India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive begins India is all set to initialize its much awaited vaccine drive on 16th January 2021 across 3,000 sites. Each site will vaccinate 100 people a day. The government plans to increase the number of vaccination sites to 5,000 in the coming days. As per the government data, around 3 lakh people will be provided vaccination shots during phase I of the drive. Batches of Covishield (Serum Institute of India) and Covaxin (Bharat Biotech)  have been delivered to 12 cities in India.  As of 12th January 2021, 54.72 lakh doses of the two vaccines reached designated…

The much awaited vaccination programme against COVID-19 will begin all across Karnataka on Saturday, January 16. To start with, four lakh healthcare and frontline workers will get vaccinated against COVID-19 when the process begins. Health minister Dr K Sudhakar informed the media that the state is fully prepared for the mammoth task. Corona warriors including police personnel and rural development department staffers will be administered the vaccine in the initial phase. As many as 16 lakh people will be covered in the initial phase of vaccination across the State, said Sudhakar, through an audio recording released by his office. On…

Delhi: Institutional quarantine for people arriving from UK As flight services to United Kingdom (UK) resume, an Air India flight comprising of 246 members landed in Delhi on 8th January 2021. Earlier, the government imposed a ban on flights from India and UK due to a new COVID-19 mutant virus found to be present in the UK. As per the new order, only 30 flights a week will be allowed to operate till 28th January 2021. The Delhi airport has advised passengers to keep a gap of at least 10 hours between their flight from the UK and the connecting…

GCC to form road safety cell In a bid to prevent accidents in Chennai, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has planned to form a road safety cell. The body would analyse the reasons behind mishaps and propose exhaustive solutions. The aim of the cell is to halve the number of accidents in the city by they year 2026. Tenders have been called for the appointment of a consultant. Improving roads, public transport infrastructure and reinforcing road safety norms are some of the focus areas. It is to be noted that the state government undertakes initiatives to enforce road safety. With…

2% land transport cess on property tax BBMP has decided to levy a 2% land transport cess on property tax from April 1. The cess was approved by BBMP administrator Gaurav Gupta and the Urban Development Department. The proposal had been approved by the previous BBMP Council in 2018. BBMP hopes to rake in up to Rs 80 crore annually from the cess. However, the BBMP cannot utilise the Urban Land Transport cess internally but must transfer it to the DULT (Directorate of Urban Land Transport) once in three months for the upkeep of pedestrian paths, bicycle tracks and other…

One UK returnee tests positive for new strain One of the returnees from the UK to Chennai has tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus. State Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan stated that the patient was quarantined soon after the arrival and isolated after the results of genomic analysis. The mutation, which is believed to have originated in thr UK, has higher transmissibility. As a measure of caution, non-essential flights to and from the UK have been banned until January 8th to contain the spread of the new strain. Source: The Hindu 15 grade separators to come up in…