The uptake of the precautionary dose has been slow, with just over 4.65 lakh having received the jabs. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra) Delhi administered 80,872 vaccine shots against Covid-19 Wednesday, crossing the 80,000 mark for the first time in over a month, according to data from the government’s CoWIN portal. Of the total shots administered on Tuesday, 52.8 per cent of the jabs were given to children between the ages of 12 and 14 years for whom the vaccination drive using BiologicalE’s Corbevax was opened last week.
The drive to immunise younger children has been picking pace steadily, increasing from just 3,900 shots on the first day to 42,723 on Tuesday. There were 31,192 shots administered the day before and 15,365 on Saturday. The numbers had dipped to 2,114 on Sunday, still contributing 40% of the shots given on the day.
The drive has picked up the pace with district teams now immunising children in their schools during camps. There are more than 6 lakh children in this age group in Delhi. The numbers are likely to pick up when camps will be organised in schools.
Vaccination numbers were dipping in Delhi since mid-February as the city reached its saturation point in immunising most categories of people barring those who are yet to get their third precautionary dose.
The uptake of the precautionary dose has been slow, with just over 4.65 lakh having received the jabs. With the government opening up the drive to all those above 60 years with or without comorbidities, now 21 lakh people over the age of 60 years in Delhi, 2.4 lakh healthcare workers and 3.5 lakh frontline workers are eligible for the dose.
“Fewer people are coming to get the precautionary dose because the number of cases has gone down; everything has opened up so the disease is no longer a threat. People do keep trickling in but it is no longer a priority for them,” said a Delhi government official.
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