More than 95,000 shots were given last Sunday, according to data from the government’s CoWIN portal. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna) Delhi administered 7,544 Covid-19 vaccines on Sunday, and while immunisation usually goes down on the weekend, this is the lowest number of shots given in a day this month. More than 95,000 shots were given last Sunday, according to data from the government’s CoWIN portal.
The trend of more children between the ages of 15 to 17 years being vaccinated during the second week of February has been reversed this past week, with more people from the age group 18-45 years taking the shot. There were 23,672 shots given on average every day in the age group of 18 to 45 years during the week that ended on February 27 as compared to 19,355 shots being given to those between the ages of 15 and 17 years.
Last week, this number stood at 28,672 shots on average for those between the ages of 18 to 15 years and 30,090 for those between the ages of 15 to 17 years.
The number of children getting immunised had picked up in January end and February first week because they become eligible for the second dose. According to government officials, all the eligible children have received their first dose but only about half have received the second dose.
“The second dose vaccination for children hasn’t been as fast as we saw with the first dose. This is mainly because of the final exams drawing near and parents not wanting their children to take the shot for the fear of fever during exams,” said a Delhi government official.
Not only have the numbers dropped among the children, the total vaccination rate has also gone down. There were 349,719 shots administered in total over the week, whereas 469,113 shots were administered last week. There were 5,52,116 shots given the week before that ended on February 13. This, the officials say is owing to Delhi reaching the saturation point of immunisation and the number of infections going down.
“We have already immunised almost all of the population, now those who remain are the ones who were hesitant, to begin with, so it will take time to convince them. Meanwhile, we are focusing on special groups, we have immunised over 1,800 old persons who couldn’t travel to the vaccination centres at their homes. We are also focusing on the transgender population,” said a senior official from Delhi’s health department.
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