Guidelines ready for inoculating 18+ in Kerala

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state government has released the guidelines for vaccinating people belonging to the age group of 18-44. The vaccination drive will begin today. As the vaccine supply is limited compared to the demand, it has been decided to give priority to people with comorbidities. For this, the government has listed 20 comorbidities which will come under priority list.
All such beneficiaries who are having comorbidities need to register on https://covid19.kerala.gov.in/vaccine/and upload comorbidity certificate for getting priority for vaccination.
Only those beneficiaries who get approval and session scheduling SMS from the health department must report to the vaccination centres on Monday. At the centre, such beneficiaries must produce the appointment SMS, valid photo ID proof and comorbidity certificate. First dose vaccination for less than 45 years will be purely based on online booking. Spot registration will not be entertained.
The approval and scheduling of vaccination will be done at the district level. The district health authorities will scrutinize each application received in the portal and approve the eligible beneficiaries for priority vaccination. Subsequently, vaccination centre and date for vaccination may be scheduled by the district team based on the availability of vaccine.
It has also been directed to have separate sessions for the people belonging to the 18-44 age group and for those above 45 years. Separate counters and verification counters will be set up at the vaccination centres for each category. The registration for the vaccination began on Saturday and 1,90,745 persons have registered. However, only 40,000 people have uploaded their comorbidity details on the website and they will be prioritized. The others will have to apply fresh.
Second dose scheduling
As per the latest guidelines from the ministry of health and family welfare, the second dose of Covishield needs to be taken only after an interval of 12-16 weeks after the first dose and in case of Covaxin the second dose must be taken after 4-6 weeks’ interval. Henceforth, online as well as spot registration for second dose will be possible only after 84 days in case of Covishield and 28 days in case of Covaxin.
As the feature for reserving online slots for second dose beneficiaries is now available in CoWIN portal, all the second dose scheduling must be done only through online booking.