NEARLY 70K DOSES ADMINISTERED AS 2ND COVISHIELD JAB DRIVES UPTICK IN DELHI’S COUNT

NEW DELHI: The vaccination drive in Delhi picked up pace on Saturday with nearly 70,000 jabs being administered, an uptick largely driven by second doses, which were more than double the number of first shots, showed data from the COWIN dashboard.

Till 7pm on Saturday, there were just over 21,000 first doses administered, as compared to over 48,400 second doses, showed the data.

The sharp increase in the number of second doses administered is down largely to Covishield recipients in the 18-45 age group, who took their first jabs in early-may, becoming eligible for their second shot, after the 12-week gap between doses. This, coupled with a shortage of stocks, led the state government to issue an order stopping the use of Covishield as first doses in their centres till July 31, even as just 20% of Covaxin stock is used for the first shot.

“This trend is likely to continue for this month and the first week of August, after which we expect that more doses [of Covishield] will become available to Delhi. As for Covaxin, we will use a small proportion of the available doses for the first shot, because supply is irregular and we do not want to be in a situation where we do not have enough vaccines for the second dose,” said a senior official from West district.

Other than Covaxin and Covishield, many private vaccination centres in Delhi have also been administering the Sputnik V jab. Just short of 30,000 doses have been administered in less than a month since the Russianmade vaccine was introduced in Delhi, showed the COWIN dashboard. The supply of Sputnik V is also likely to pick up, with several Indian companies starting to manufacture it.

So far, 7.28 million Delhi residents, of the city’s 20 million population, have been partially immunised. Further, 2.3 million or 11.5% of the city’s residents have been completely vaccinated against Covid-19.