COVID-19: Delhi Jal Board staff among first to be given vaccine

NEW DELHI: Health and Family Welfare Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday said the AAP government has issued orders to include the employees of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) and electricity department in the category of frontline staff for Covid-19 vaccination in the first phase of rollout.

“Yesterday (Tuesday), the Delhi government issued orders that DJB and electricity department workers should be included in the list of frontline staff who will receive the vaccine in the first phase. During the lockdown, all these workers were on duty, working 24x7. Hence, they, too, have been duly included in the list along with police, civil defence and cleaning staff,” Jain said.

The Delhi government had recently begun the process of enrolment of healthcare workers of different

hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities for Covid-19 vaccination. Hundreds of HCWs at government and private facilities had contracted the novel coronavirus, and many more are still getting affected by it.

‘Positivity rate below 2%’
Jain said the national capital is “aggressively tackling” the Covid-19 situation and not only has the positivity rate dipped to below two per cent, but it is also the lowest figure since May. Delhi recorded 1,547 fresh Covid-19 cases on Wednesday with over 79,000 tests conducted, even as the positivity rate stood at 1.96 per cent, authorities said.

The death toll mounted to 10,147 with 32 new fatalities while the active case tally dropped to 13,261 from 14,480 the previous day. This is the second consecutive day when the positivity rate remained below two percent. The positivity rate from December 3 to December 7 had successively dipped to 4.96 percent, 4.78 percent, 4.2 percent, 3.68 percent and 3.15 percent respectively. However, on December 8 it had risen again to 4.23 percent, falling again to 3.42 percent on December 9 and 2.46 percent on December 10.