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Delhiites are slowly but surely shedding their fear for Covid-19 vaccination and turning up in better numbers for inoculation. This trend is visible given that most of those vaccinated till date have shown little or no complications post the immunisation, sources said.
On Friday, 16,894 senior citizens and those above 45 years but with co-morbidities took the shot as against 11,655 on Tuesday.
Narendra Shegal, Medical Director at Delhi’s Sehgal Neo Hospital, said: “Initially, I had to convince my family members, including my parents (my mother is 84-years old and my father 89), my aunts (91- and 84-year-old) about vaccination, but when one got the jab and there was no complication or after-effects, others too came forward and got the vaccine. Now, none of us has any problem.”
M Suneja, a housewife, said: “I am 61 years old. I think everyone should get the vaccine. There is no complication. My family members also think it is normal to be vaccinated”.
On Saturday, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar was administered the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine at Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
More vaccination centres
In Bengaluru, senior citizens keen to get vaccinated approached the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike administrator to hasten the process. Earlier in the day, K Sudhakar, Health and Medical Education Minister, said: “Vaccination will be provided at about 3,000 centres from Monday which include PHCs, Taluk and District Hospitals. The government has set a target of vaccinating 1.5 lakh people each day.” In Maharashtra, too, vaccination is on the rise. Immediate past president of the Maharashtra unit of the Indian Medical Association, Avinash Bhondwe, said the anxiety and fear about the vaccine are going away. Social organisations are also motivating their members to get vaccinated. The initial problems with the Covin app are also getting sorted out, he said.
Telangana continued to add more centres for vaccination and as of Saturday evening, 438 centres have been administering vaccines.
‘Accelerate vaccination’
Even as the number of people vaccinated in the country exceeded 2 crore, the Centre, at a meeting held on Saturday, asked States and Union Territories seeing a surge in Covid-19 cases and high active case-loads to accelerate the vaccination process for priority population groups on “mission mode”, apart from continuing with the strategy of “test, track and treat” that had yielded rich dividend at the height of the pandemic.
They have been asked to collaborate with private hospitals to offer a vaccination timetable for a minimum of 15 days and maximum of 28 days at a time.
In a detailed presentation, it was pointed out that nine districts in Delhi, 15 in Haryana, 10 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 in Odisha, nine in Himachal Pradesh, seven in Uttarakhand, two in Goa, one in Chandigarh continue to be of concern as they are seeing a dip in total tests being conducted, low share of RT-PCR tests, increase in weekly positivity and low number of contact tracing of Covid-positive cases.
(With inputs from Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai Bureaus and PTI)
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