chennai the biggest challenge for tamil nadu government in its fight against the covid19 pandemic is the hesitancy of the people in rural areas and the poor in urban centres to get vaccinated said state health minister m subramanian in an interview to toi we create awareness among people to get themselves vaccinated we tell them that if adults get vaccinated it would encourage children to get inoculated when their turn comes another major challenge is delay by people in seeking medical care in tamil nadu he saidindifference of political executives and bureaucratic slackness since february when the assembly elections were set in motion resulted in abnormal increase in covid infection and tamil nadus medical infrastructure getting overstretched he said however this is not the time to play the blame game our job is to set things right and we are at it he saidsubramanian is cracking the whip to rein in erring medicos who throw the government guidelines and covid protocols to the wind he has transferred deans of a few medical colleges for permitting attendants of covid patients inside covid wards and icus despite government orders prohibiting it many others have been put on notice for flouting norms the pandemic may have hit the peak in tamil nadu and going by the present trend it could subside within a month he said daily fresh cases in chennai has remained below 7000 for four days in a row the numbers have plateaued in several other districts he saidqait is a major relief that there was no major incident owing to oxygen shortage in the last 10 days but there were several touchandgo situations health minister m subramanian tells jayaraj sivan and pushpa narayan in an interviewis tamil nadu able to meet the oxygen requirementtamil nadus oxygen production capacity is 400 mt but our requirement is 470 mt per day it is a major relief there was no major incident owing to oxygen shortage in the last 10 days several hospitals made sos calls to us with just two hours of oxygen stock we struggled but managed to supply oxygen in time to all those hospitals we have had several touchandgo situations in many hospitals the situation has improved in the last two days because of oxygen from eastern corridor and our emphasis on rational use of the lifesaving gas proning encouraged by doctors in many hospitals has led to judicious use of oxygenwhat is the biggest challenge in the fight against covidlack of awareness among the people is a major concern people should realise lockdown is imposed to keep them safe if you violate norms you are putting everyone at risk there are differences between the first wave and the second one studies show a single person is infecting up to 400 people in the second wave when i assumed office tn was reporting 20000 new cases per day in a few days it increased to 33000 cases people in rural areas and poor in urban centres are hesitant