TN CM Palaniswami promises Covid-19 vaccine free of charge as State crosses 7 lakh cases

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday announced that the Covid-19 vaccine, once discovered, would be administered for free to the people of the State.
This comes after the BJP, earlier in the day, promised that everyone in Bihar would be given free vaccination for Covid-19.

"Once Covid-19 vaccine is ready, it will be provided to all people of the state free of cost," Palaniswami announced as Tamil Nadu gears up for elections next year.

This comes as the State witnessed 3077 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday as opposed to 3086 cases on Wednesday. This takes the total tally in the State to over 7 lakh cases.

The State has consistently been reporting a decline with daily Covid-19 cases being under 4000. With 700,193 cases in all, the State is among the worst-hit by the infection.

Chennai too remained under 1000 cases on Thursday with 833 people testing positive for the infection in comparison to 845 people testing positive on Wednesday.

The number of deaths, however, went up from 39 on Wednesday to 45 on Thursday, taking the total death toll to 10,825.

As many as 4314 people recovered from the infection on Thursday, and the total recoveries now stand at 655,170.

Testing, however, remained lower than usual with 79,821 people being tested on Thursday as opposed to 80,348 people tested on Wednesday. The State has tested over 90 lakh people so far and just as recently as last week, as many as 93,844 people were tested for Covid-19 in a single day.