A beneficiary receives a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in New Delhi (Express Photo) The pace of Covid-19 vaccination in Delhi has fallen further, with only 44,467 doses administered on Wednesday, according to the government’s CoWIN portal. This is against an average of 68,000 doses a day this week barring Sunday. Last week, over 76,600 doses were administered on average each day.
The drop in the total numbers coincides with the slowdown of vaccination for those in the age group 18-44, who have accounted for the highest number of doses administered in the city, along with the children aged between 15 and 17.
Just over 22,200 doses were administered in the 18-44 age group on Wednesday, the lowest this year, barring Sundays and public holidays. The number of doses given in this category had remained over 40,000 even towards January end when the total numbers had started going down as vaccination for other age groups had saturated.
At the beginning of January, over 96,000 doses were being administered on average each day in this category alone, with the total crossing the 1,00,000 mark.
The number of doses among children towards January end had started dropping with over 80 per cent already administered their first dose. The numbers started picking up again after the second-dose administration for children began on January 31.
“However, the second-dose vaccination is slower than the first-dose one. Many parents do not want their children to get vaccinated now because of the final exams coming up,” said a senior district official.
“Fewer people are getting vaccinated across the categories because now vaccination is not a priority since the cases have gone down. People still do come, but it is not an urgent matter for them.”
The Indian Express previously reported that the numbers were dropping because Covid-19 vaccination in Delhi has reached a saturation across all age groups.
Meanwhile, the number of precaution doses has continued to remain low. Only 2,792 precaution doses were administered on average for the last three days. So far, 404,965 precaution doses have been administered in Delhi since January 10 among the estimated 9,70,000 persons eligible.
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