The emergence of the Omicron Covid-19 variant had pushed the global countries to expedite their Covid-19 vaccination drive and while India has taken a major leap of administering over 100 crore vaccines, the government has aimed to pace up the drive to cover the people who are yet to receive their second dose, amid planning for launching booster doses. Every state and district have been taking stock of the situation and enhancing the measures to increase the vaccination rate. 

In line with that, the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu has imposed severe restrictions to battle the poor vaccination rate. As per the restrictions, unvaccinated people will be barred from public places. The fresh restrictions have come after Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian had inspected the district on Thursday.  According to reports, Madurai District Collector Aneesh had imposed restrictions to avert the unvaccinated people from assessing the public places where a large number of people will gather. 

In a meeting with the district officials, the Collector had said that those who are unvaccinated will not be allowed to venture into public places such as ration shops, supermarkets, malls, textile shops, movie theatres, banks, wedding halls, and complexes. The restrictions would play their role in 18 public places and they were imposed on Friday and came into effect immediately. 

The collector said that if a person has received the first dose of the vaccine and is yet to get the due for the second dose, they are allowed to venture into public places. However, the people who didn't receive the second dose even after their due will be barred in public places till they get fully vaccinated. The district officials say that the interest among the people to receive the vaccine has still been low despite several awareness programs and campaigns across the district. 

Madurai district was one of the districts that got affected severely by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic and on Thursday, Health Minister Ma Subramanian had inspected various areas in Madurai on Thursday and observed that the district has a poor vaccination record. He said that Madurai has a low vaccination record and appealed to the public to come forward and get vaccinated. As per the data, only 71 per cent of the public in Madurai have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine while only 32 per cent of the public has fully been vaccinated.