15k+ get vaccine jabs in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Over 15,000 health care and frontline workers in the city received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, the most inoculations in Delhi so far, as turnouts for the jabs continued to inch up, with the government opening up the programme for more beneficiaries and adding more centres.

The Delhi government increased the number of vaccination sites from 183 to 265 Thursday onwards, with 253 opening on the day, and 15,803 getting inoculated. With the increase in centres, however, and a subsequent increase in number of targeted beneficiaries, the vaccine coverage dropped to 62.4%, from 80.6% on Wednesday.

District administrations are now focussing on vaccinating as many health care workers as possible before the February 20 deadline, when the data for the first category of the beneficiaries will be frozen.

“We are urging people to get the shots as soon as possible to avoid missing out on vaccination. Now, there are so many people who are coming to us requesting that their names be added to the COWIN portal but the list was frozen a couple of weeks back and we cannot do anything,” said a senior official from the South district, which saw the most people (1,810) getting the vaccine on Thursday.

So far, Delhi has vaccinated 162,575 health care and front line workers since the programme began on January 16.

The healthcare workers who were the first to receive the vaccine will start getting their second vaccine shot Saturday onwards, according to senior officials from Delhi’s health department. Both the vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin – need two doses around 28 days apart to be effective in preventing the disease.