As the pace of administering Covid vaccinations gathers momentum across the country, Gujarat has fully vaccinated 28 per cent of its eligible population as on September 9, the highest for any State in the country.

This, according to sources in the government, gives confidence to the authority to provide relaxations during the upcoming festivals, including Ganesh Utsav and Navaratri.

Gujarat currently tops with the highest percentage of fully-vaccinated population people in the country. It is closely followed by Maharashtra, with 20 per cent of its eligible population (above 18 years) fully vaccinated. West Bengal comes in third at 18 per cent and Uttar Pradesh at 10 per cent.

Ganpati procession

While relaxations for Navaratri (starting October 7) will be taken in due course, on Wednesday, the State government decided to give conditional approval for DJ, music band and other performers for religious gatherings ahead of Ganpati Utsav. The maximum attendees allowed is 400 in open spaces, or 50 per cent of the hall capacity (but not exceeding 400) in closed spaces.

However, for the Ganpati procession, only 15 people are allowed, considering the possibility of over-crowding at the Visarjan venues.

Notably, the State has increased its pace of daily vaccinations. On Thursday, Gujarat administered nearly 5 lakh doses till the evening. For the 7-day period between September 2 and 8, Gujarat conducted a daily average 5.39 lakh doses, which is the highest daily average so far for the State. Total vaccinations reached 5.13 crore, which includes 3.76 crore of first dose and 1.37 crore of second dose. The State has an eligible population of 4.93 crore. Besides the vaccinations, the daily new cases have gone down drastically for past one month.

The State reported an average of about 15 cases on a daily basis between September 2 and 8, which was about 20 cases for the same week last month, about 72 cases for the corresponding week in July, and about 1,000 cases in the same week in June.

Fall in TPR

The test positivity ratio has come down from average 1.2 per cent in the first week of June to 0.02 per cent in September.

Government sources informed that with cases going down, rise in vaccination coverage there is a possibility of further relaxations for the festivals. But the government has kept the gatherings restricted with strict compliance of the standard operating procedures (SOP) required for Covid.

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