Officials in Tamil Nadu's Madurai district announced that unvaccinated people would not be allowed to enter public places such as hotels, malls, and other commercial establishments after India reported its first two cases of Omicron, NDTV reported. The district administration said that a week grace has been given for people to get at least the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine before restrictions to come into effect.
District collector Aneesh Sekhar told news agency ANI that nearly 3 lakh people in Madurai are yet to receive at least the first dose. 71.6 % of the district population have got the first dose and 32.8 per cent both doses, he said. Karnataka has also announced similar restrictions on Friday. The state, where the two Omicron cases were detected, made two-dose vaccination mandatory for people entering malls, theatres, and cinema halls.
In Tamil Nadu, three international travellers from Singapore and the United Kingdom, Including a child, tested Covid positive. The samples were sent for genome sequencing to ascertain if they were infected by the latest variant of the virus. The state had recorded 711 new cases in 24 hours, the cumulative cases reaching 27.29,061, while the death count reached 36,513 after nine were reported on Friday. New patients were mainly from Chennai and Coimbatore.