World's biggest vaccination drive takes off

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 16

The Centre on Friday mounted an all-out social media outreach to dispel myths as India prepared for the rollout of the national Covid vaccination drive, the world’s biggest, at 10.30 am tomorrow.

Three lakh healthcare and frontline workers will be vaccinated in the first phase of the drive on Saturday with randomly allocated Covishield and indigenous Covaxin shots.

Editorial: Vaccination Day

Hundred beneficiaries will be administered doses at each of the 3,006 sites across the country with Prime Minister Narendra Modi all set to launch the campaign and witness first jabs being delivered. The PM is expected to virtually connect with session sites as the vaccination progresses at around 50 locations.

Also read: Go get vaccinated, don’t take COVID for granted: NIMHANS chief to health workers

Asked what he considered the top challenge ahead of the D-Day, Member, Health, NITI Aayog, VK Paul said, “We hope all three lakh beneficiaries registered to get the vaccine on day one arrive at the allocated sites and receive their shots.” Vaccine hesitancy remains a key concern for Covid-19 managers as independent experts continue to question the efficacy of Covaxin, which is yet to complete the Phase 3 trials. Paul said in emergency situations, the Indian law permits Phase 2 immunogenicity data to be used as a surrogate for the Phase 3 efficacy data which has happened in the case of Covaxin.

“Both vaccines are safe and there have been no major side effects reported,” Paul said. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan spent his day firefighting rumours about vaccines and said vaccines neither cause infertility nor was there any reported case of vaccine derived Covid virus.

Sending a clear message that the vaccination is not yet meant for the general public, Vardhan said the self-registration module of the government’s Co-WIN (app for Covid shot rollout) has not been released yet. “Be wary of fraudulent apps with similar names. Co-WIN app is not available in stores,” he added.

Day 1

3 lakh healthcare, frontline workers to get jabs on Saturday
100 beneficiaries at each of the 3,006 sites across the country

At PGI, 100 to get shots

Of the 11,500 staffers at PGI-Chandigarh, 100 have been selected through computer randomisation to receive the first dose of the vaccine

80% Indians trust jabs

To boost vaccine confidence, the Centre released the findings of a survey showing 80% of the Indians trust the vaccines against 66% in the UK, 62% in Germany, 59% in the US and 40% in Russia

Himachal govt schools to reopen in Feb

shimla: With a steady decline in Covid cases, the HP Government has decided to reopen schools from next month by strictly following standard operating procedures. While the summer-closing schools will open for students from February 1, classes in winter-closing schools will begin from February 15.

The decision to open schools was taken by the Cabinet at its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. All government colleges will be opened for regular classes from February 8 after the winter vacation. — TNS

Covid-19 Cases india

Count 1,05,27,683
Recovered 1,01,62,738
Fresh fatalities 191
Total deaths 1,51,918

World

Total 9,37,19,107
Recovered 6,69,83,355
Deaths 20,06,234

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