Delhi govt endeavours to raise vaccine turnout 

NEW DELHI:  The Delhi government will take measures like counselling and formal phone calls in the coming days to raise the percentage of healthcare workers turning up for being administered Covid-19 vaccines, official said. Only 4,319 health workers, against a target of 8,117, were administered the vaccines at 81 centres across the city on day one of the nationwide mega vaccination drive launched on Saturday. This was just 53.3 per cent of those registered for vaccination on the day.  

“We will hold counselling sessions to create awareness so that apprehensions of the health workers could be allayed. They will also be called on phones to seek their confirmation and also to encourage them to come forward for taking the vaccines,” a senior Delhi government official said.

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“It is necessary to boost confidence of the health workers towards vaccination because its a voluntary exercise. Still, if some health workers do not come forward for it, they may be included in the next sessions on the coming days as per a roster,” he said.

In the first phase of coronavirus vaccination drive, health workers and frontline workers have been kept in priority group and are being administered free vaccines. Delhi has about 3 lakh healthcare workers, 6 lakh frontline workers, and about 42 lakh people who are aged above 50 years or have co-morbidities, that have to be administered the vaccine in the first phase, officials said. 

Many people are adopting a ‘wait and watch’ approach with the vaccine. Also lack of communication and glitches in the CoWin app are considered to be the major reasons behind the low turnout for vaccination. CoWin is an online platform for monitoring COVID-19 vaccine delivery. 

One “severe” and 51 “minor” cases of AEFI (adverse events following immunisation) were reported among those who got the vaccine in the national capital on Saturday, said Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Sunday.  Talking about the low turnout, Jain said some people did not turn up for the vaccination at the last moment.