Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday had tweeted that the positivity rate had been below 1 per cent for the last 11 days, and fresh cases were the lowest since May 17. The national capital has been recording less than 500 new Covid-19 cases for two days in a row now. It recorded 424 cases, the lowest in over seven months, and 14 new fatalities on Sunday, and the positivity rate slipped to 0.62 per cent. On Saturday, 494 cases were recorded.
Jain on Saturday had tweeted that the positivity rate had been below 1 per cent for the last 11 days, and fresh cases were the lowest since May 17.
Health Minister Satyendar Jain Sunday hailed the Drug Controller General of India’s (DCGI) move approving the emergency use of two Covid-19 vaccines, adding that the state government is all set to roll-out the vaccination programme as soon as any of them arrives.
Nine lakh people, including 3 lakh healthcare workers and nearly 6 lakh frontline workers, will be vaccinated in the first phase, Jain said while sharing details about the vaccination programme.
“The protocol will be that healthcare and frontline workers, people over 50 years of age or with co-morbidity will be injected in the first phase of the rollout… The vaccine will be first rolled out to these 9 lakh people (healthcare and frontline workers),” he said.
A dry run was conducted on Saturday at three session sites in Delhi to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges.
“A dry run was conducted yesterday in three different types of centres — government hospital, private hospital and government dispensary… Ultimately, 1,000 centres will be made. In the first phase, we will make 500-600 centres,” he said.
India’s drugs regulator has approved the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute, and Bharat Biotech’s indigenously developed Covaxin for restricted emergency use in the country.
Meanwhile, the ongoing phase 3 human trials of Covaxin at AIIMS, Delhi, is expected to be completed by Monday. The medical institute had set a target of administering the indigenous vaccine to 1,000 volunteers. “We are very close to completing the target and hopefully, the exercise will be completed by Monday. Earlier, the rejection rate was higher due to lack of proper information but over the last 15 days, more people are visiting the centre and the process has picked up the pace,” said a senior doctor from AIIMS.