In another setback to the city's vaccination drive, Chennai halts the drive of vaccinating the residents on Monday as the city has run out of vaccine stocks. The city had encountered a similar setback weeks ago and it is under imperative need to acquire an adequate amount of vaccines as it is getting back to normalcy after the government has relaxed the curbs as the sequel of a decline in the positivity rate and active cases. 

According to reports, the Greater Chennai Corporation has announced that there are no vaccination camps on Monday - July 5 due to a shortage of vaccine doses. The civic body had closed the vaccine counters on Monday and the newly launched website of the civic body to book vaccine slots also displayed no availability of bookings on Monday. It has been expected that the drive would be resuming once the adequate amount of vaccine is received. 

Speaking to a news agency, a corporation official has said that only 14,000 people were vaccinated in Chennai on Sunday - July 4. It was the lowest number of vaccination comparing to the last two days. The civic body had vaccinated 29,613 and 26,206 people last Friday and Saturday respectively. The official has also cited that besides Chennai, the entire state of Tamil Nadu has been witnessing a dearth of the vaccine. 

As per the Cowin website, only 62,000 people were vaccinated on Sunday. The total vaccination numbers in Tamil Nadu on Friday and Saturday were at 4.09 lakh people and 2.81 lakh people respectively. The sudden decline had put the government and people in concern as the setback for the vaccination drive had come when the state is preparing for large-scale relaxations. Tamil Nadu has welcomed a pile of relaxations from Monday after facing lockdowns to battle the second wave of the pandemic. 

The corporation official has said that the fresh stocks would arrive in the evening hours of Monday and the drive will be resumed once the fresh stock has arrived in the city. Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian had earlier said that the state is expected to receive 71 lakh doses of vaccine from the Union government in July. In June, the Union government had reserved 42 lakh doses but it had sent 50 lakh doses due to the better performance of the state in vaccination.