Telangana High Court Sets Deadline To Vaccinate Teachers, Support Staff

Telangana High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to complete vaccination of all teaching and non-teaching staff in schools within two months. A bench of Acting Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice T. Vinod Kumar passed this direction while hearing to the PILs related to COVID-19 management in the state. 

Taking a serious note of the death of a 56-year-old government school teacher due to coronavirus in Bhadradri Kothagudem district on September 20, the High Court ordered that, "All government schools and some private institutions have commenced physical classes, as per your own details, yet vaccination has not been administered to all the 4.93 lakh teaching and non-teaching staff. There is an impending need to vaccinate the remaining staff. As children interact with them, there is a possibility that they would get affected. Though children are asymptomatic, they will be carriers to their houses, which may lead to community spread. Hence, this court wants completion of the vaccination process to teaching and non-teaching staff within two months."

Telangana High Court said that all citizens above the age of 18 years should be inoculated with two doses of COVID-19 vaccine within three months.

According to Dr. Srinivas Rao, 2.08 lakh people have taken their first shot and out of them, 45,760 people were yet to get their second dose. He further added that around 95 percent of the GHMC population has been vaccinated.

The High Court expressed anguish on the Telangana government's way of dealing with COVID-19. The bench observed, "Two waves of COVID-19 already hit us...there were huge fatalities...will the Central government include life-saving medicines in essential medicines list after the third wave engulfs us?”