SHIELDED & VAXINATED

Process to immunise India against Covid begins as first doses of Covishield and Covaxin administered

NEW DELHI: Doctors, paramedics and hospital workers — who for most part of 2020 were on the frontlines of the battle against the rampaging coronavirus, often ceaselessly even when they saw their colleagues fall — became the first to receive Sarscov-2 vaccines as India kicked off a colossal immunisation campaign on Saturday.

Between 10.30am, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the exercise with an address to the nation, and late evening, roughly 191,181 people received doses at 3,351 vaccination sites, preliminary data by the Union health ministry showed.

According to data compiled from states by HT, 200,297 people were vaccinated. The number was shy of the 300,000 that was being estimated but still far higher than what was recorded by any country on its first day.

“We are launching the world’s biggest vaccination drive and it shows the world our capability,” Modi said in his address, imploring citizens to keep their guard up and not believe any “rumors about the safety of the vaccines.”

Modi also described India’s vaccine allotment formula as humanitarian and recounted the time when the outbreak was peaking in India. “As much as we think about those days, we become sad. But in those days of crisis there were people who put their lives in danger to save us: our doctors, nurses, paramedic, ambulance drivers, police, ASHA, and other frontline workers. They gave priority to their duties. Many of them stayed away from their families didn’t go home. There are many friends who will never return home. They sacrificed their lives to save us,” Modi said, before adding that these have been prioritised.

Among those who got doses on Saturday, there were no serious side effects requiring hospitalisation, Union health ministry said. In all, there were 16,755 personnel involved in the immunisations on Saturday.

Authorities hope to give shots to 300 million people, roughly the population of the US, by the end of summer.

The recipients include 30 million doctors, nurses and other frontline workers such as police and firefighters, who will be followed by 270 million others, who are either aged over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to Covid-19.

The drive began simultaneously across dedicated vaccination centres set up across the country, where doses of Covishield – the manufactured-in-india version of UK’S Oxford-astrazeneca vaccine – and indigenously developed Covaxin were