Karnataka Vaccinates 4 Lakh In A Day Amid Focus On Districts Along Border

Karnataka has been focussing on stepping up vaccination in the districts neighbouring Kerala and Maharashtra, the state's Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said today. The southern state administered more than four lakh vaccine doses on Monday as the country witnessed a new record with the inoculation of 88 lakh people.

More than 3.5 crore doses have been administered by Karnataka so far. "Karnataka crosses 3.5 crore doses on Aug 16th," the state's Health Minister tweeted.

"We need to address vaccination in the border districts which are more likely to see more coronavirus cases because of the situation that is prevailing in Kerala," Dr Sudhakar told reporters.

"So the focus now is increasing vaccination in the border districts."

The state is hopeful of 75 lakh doses being provided every month by the centre. "This time they (the central government) have assured us of 75 lakh doses of which we have got 35 to 40 lakhs. Another 14 -15 days to go, and I am still optimistic that they will increase the allocation to Karnataka this month," Dr Sudhakar said today.

g 16th!
ಆಗಸ್ಟ್ 16 ರಂದು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ 3.5 ಕೋಟಿ ಡೋಸ್ ಗಳನ್ನು ಪೂರೈಸಿತು!@narendramodi @BSBommai @mansukhmandviya pic.twitter.com/nIGs8C7rwY

— Dr Sudhakar K (@mla_sudhakar) August 17, 2021

There have been objections made against the requirement by Karnataka that even those who have received both doses of vaccination still need to produced an RT-PCR Covid negative certificate if entering the state from Kerala or Maharashtra.

"Two doses of vaccination does not guarantee that a person is not infected," the Minister said. "And Karnataka has suffered earlier in both phase 1 and phase 2 because of the increased influx of cases from these two states unfortunately. So we are a little more cautious or over-cautious to see that we protect our state."

The state logged 1,065 fresh coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the overall tally since the state of the pandemic to over 29.3 lakh.