Give preference to those waiting for 2nd vaccine dose, Centre to States

The Centre has asked States to prioritise those due for the second dose of a Covid vaccine.

At a virtual high-level review meeting attended by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, States were asked to reserve at least 70 per cent of the vaccines supplied to them for those due for the second dose (however, States have the option of expanding this to 100 per cent) and the balance 30 per cent for those waiting to get the first shot.

On the issue of pending payments by the States for vaccines, the States were advised to constitute a dedicated team to coordinate daily with the manufacturers and secure supplies from them. This team can also coordinate with private hospitals to facilitate procurement of vaccines and thereby maintain the momentum of the vaccination exercise in the State, the statement said.

Variation in age group

According to an official statement, State-wise numbers on CoWIN have been shared with States for planning purposes. The CoWIN will provide the flexibility and feature for reserving slots for the second dose; the app will be customised and will also open up the APIs (Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other).

At the media briefing, when asked whether there was any variation in age group of those getting affected by Covid-19, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Balram Bhargava said, “We analysed those who were hospitalised during this second wave. The data collected since August last year show there is not much age difference during the first and second wave. People above the age of 40 are more vulnerable for the adverse outcome and the hospitalised mortality is in the 9-9.5 per cent range.”

Lav kumar, Joint Secretary, said an early trend of decline in daily fresh cases and deaths has been observed. There are more than one lakh active cases in 13 States, more than 50,000 cases in six States and less than 50,000 cases in 17 States.

India has administered 17,27,10,066 doses since the start of the vaccination drive in January, with 25,03,756 shots given in the last 24 hours till 8:00 am. In the 18-44 age group, 5,18,479 beneficiaries received the first vaccine dose under the government’s Phase 3 inoculation drive the previous day till 8:00 pm and, cumulatively, 25,52,843 people got the shots across 30 States since it started on May 1. Meanwhile, 18,50,110 Covid tests were conducted the previous day.

According to the Health Ministry data available till 8:00 AM on Tuesday, so far more than 18 crore vaccine doses have been provided to States/UTs for free of which the total consumption including wastages is 17,09,71,429 doses. More than 90 lakh vaccine shots are still available with the States/UTs to be administered, it said in a statement.