Tamil Nadu's Madurai To Ban Hotel, Mall Entry For Unvaccinated People

In the wake of two cases of Omicron detected in India, Tamil Nadu's Madurai today announced that unvaccinated people would not be allowed to enter malls, shopping complexes and other public places from next week.

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.

"One week's time has been given to people to get at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, failing which those unvaccinated people to be not allowed to enter public places like hotels, shopping malls amd other commercial establishments," Madurai Collector Aneesh Sekhar told ANI.

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.

Karnataka, where the two Omicron cases were detected, had on Friday announced similar restrictions. The state has made the two-dose vaccination mandatory for entry into public places like malls, theatres and cinema halls.

Three international air travellers, including a child, who had arrived in Tamil Nadu from Singapore and the United Kingdom, have tested positive for Covid. The samples have been sent for genome sequencing to ascertain if they are infected with the latest variant of coronavirus.

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.