KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Vaccination Update: Day One
A total of 1.65 lakh Indian citizens received Covid-19 vaccines on the first day of the vaccination drive, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday evening.
The number of personnel involved in the drive stood at 16,755. “No cases of post vaccination hospitalisation has been reported so far, said Manohar Agnani, additional secretary in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Over 16,000 beneficiaries were vaccinated in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar while 15,727 received their vaccine shot in Maharashtra, while the count in Uttar Pradesh stood at 15,975.
Covaxin Concerns
The Resident Doctors' Association (RDA) of the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi on Saturday requested the medical superintendent to vaccinate them with Oxford Covid-19 vaccine ‘Covishield.’
In a letter to the medical superintendent, the association said that the resident doctors were a bit apprehensive about Covaxin and might not participate in the immunisation drive in large numbers, thus defeating the purpose of the exercise which began in the country on Saturday.
Read more here.
Covaxin Consent Form
Health workers who got their first shots of Covaxin at AIIMS on Saturday were made to sign a consent form that promised compensation in case of a ‘severe adverse event’ related to the vaccine, PTI reported.
Covaxin has demonstrated the ability to produce antibodies against Covid-19 in phase one and phase two trials. “However, the clinical efficacy is yet to be established and it is still being studied in phase 3 clinical trial,” the form read.
Read more here.
India's Vaccination Campaign Begins
India launched one of the world’s largest coronavirus vaccination drives on Saturday, setting in motion a complex deployment plan aimed at stemming the wide spread of infections across a nation of more than 1.3 billion people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the programme with a speech addressing more than 3,000 centers across India where the first shots were to be given.
“These vaccines will help India win the battle against the virus,” Modi said, adding that Indians should get the shots and not pay heed to any anti-vaccine propaganda.
Watch: Modi Launches India's Vaccination Programme
Key Highlights From Modi's Speech:
- India to vaccinate 3 crore people in the first phase, 30 crore in the second phase.
- Indian government to bear the cost of 30 crore vaccines.
- Don’t stop wearing masks or maintaining social desistance, just because the vaccination campaign has started.
- Taking both doses very important; experts say there should be gap of around one month between the two injections.
- Vaccines approved in India are much cheaper and easier to store and transport than the vaccines approved by many other countries.
- Don’t believe any propaganda or rumours regarding vaccines approved in India.
Mumbai To Start With 12,000 Vaccinations A Day
India’s business and financial hub Mumbai, once the country’s coronavirus hotspot, is building facilities to store 1 crore doses of the vaccine as it aims to open fully from a strict lockdown.
The municipal commission will initially run the vaccination programme at eight centers, which can inject 12,000 people a day. The capacity will rise to 50,000 people daily within a week, subject to availability of vaccines and people’s response.
Day 1 Of India's Vaccination Drive
Each centre aims to inoculate at least 100 recipients today. Recipients do not have the option of choosing which vaccine they will receive. Each centre will administer only one of the two vaccines approved by the drug regulator of India. The government says its aimed at ensuring that there is no confusion when the second dosage is administered after 28 days.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will kick-off the drive at 10:30 a.m. through a virtual conference.
Global Deaths Hit 20 Lakh
India is embarking on one of the world’s largest coronavirus vaccination drives even as the world hits a frightening Covid-19 benchmark, with 20 lakh people dead and few expectations for infections to start dropping soon. The global coronavirus case count reached 9.38 crore as of Saturday morning.
President-elect Joe Biden called on all Americans to wear masks in public for 100 days, saying it was “stupid” that face coverings had become a political issue. The Covid-19 variant that emerged in the U.K. and sparked concerns of faster spread could become dominant in the U.S. as soon as March, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The U.S. stepped up its claims that the Covid-19 virus could have emerged from a Chinese laboratory and not through contact with infected animals. South Korea is extending social-distancing measures as the number of cases creeps higher.
India's Active Covid-19 Caseload Drops To 2.11 Lakh
Active coronavirus cases in India declined further even as the country flags off the world's biggest vaccination drive from today.
India reported 15,158 new cases in a matter of 24 hours, according to the Union Health Ministry’s data as of 8 a.m. on Jan. 16. That’s lower than the 16,977 patients who recovered from the virus in the same time period, taking active cases to 2.11 lakh. India had over 10 lakh live infections in mid-September.
Key Figures
- Total number of confirmed coronavirus cases: 1,05,42,841
- Active cases: 2,11,033
- Cured/discharged/migrated: 1,01,79,715
- Deaths: 1,52,093
- Number of fresh cases in the last 24 hours: 15,158
- One-day recoveries: 16,977
- One-day deaths: 175
Almost a year since the first coronavirus case was detected in Kerala, the stage is set for India to begin its inoculation drive. Over 3 lakh healthcare workers are likely to receive their first dose of the vaccine, an event which the government has referred to as “probably the beginning of the end” of Covid-19.
A total of 3,006 session sites across all states and union territories will be virtually connected during the launch and around 100 beneficiaries will be vaccinated at each session site on the first day.
The vaccination drive has been planned in a phased manner, identifying priority groups. Healthcare workers, both in government and private sectors including Integrated Child Development Services workers, will receive the vaccine during this phase, the health ministry said in a statement.
India has, so far, approved emergency use for two vaccines. The first is the Astrazeneca-Oxford vaccine, marketed as Covishield by Serum Institute of India Ltd. The second is the contentious Covaxin of Bharat Biotech International Ltd., which is yet to complete its human stage trials and provide further efficacy data.
An online digital platform Co-WIN, developed by the health ministry, will be used to drive the vaccination programme.
Track all developments around the Covid outbreak and the vaccine rollout, here.
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