Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said administering vaccines to every single “eligible child at the earliest” should be a priority while Covid-appropriate behaviour has to be adhered to in all public places.

Modi’s comments were made during his interaction with Chief Ministers through video conferencing. The meeting was called to review the Covid situation in the country amidst apprehensions of a fourth wave and increasing positivity rate of infections across several states including the national capital of Delhi.

India’s Covid cases have been inching up over the last few days, particularly in the Delhi – NCR area. The country reported 2,927 new coronavirus case on a 24-hour basis and 32 deaths (which includes 26 backlog from Kerala, one each in Mizoram and Delhi, and four in Maharashtra). Active cases comprised 0.04 per cent of total infections and recovery rate stood at 98.75 per cent. Daily positivity rate was at 0.58 per cent.

Kerala was among the latest states to reintroduce mask mandates after Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

A number of children have also been infected in the recent spikes, which has led to apprehensions among several quarters.

“It is clear that Covid is not fully over yet. Our priority is to vaccinate all eligible children at the earliest. For this, as before, special campaigns will also be needed in schools. Teachers and parents should be aware about this,” he said during the review meeting.

DCGI gives EUA nod

The Prime Minister mentioned that schools have opened after a gap of nearly two years and some parents are worried by the increased number of cases in some places. However, more children are getting vaccinated.

In March, a campaign to vaccinate those in the 12-14 years range was started and on Tuesday, the DCGI gave emergency use approval to three vaccines – Corbevax (for 5-12 year olds), Covaxin ( 6-12 years) and ZyCov-D (12 years +). India is yet to start administering jabs to sub-12 year olds.

Precautionary doses for all adults in the country have been announced to strengthen the vaccine’s protective shield.

Around 87 per cent of India’s adult population has been double vaccinated; while 96 per cent has received at least one jab. Over 188.19 crore vaccine doses have already been administered.

“Preventing infections at the very beginning was our priority and should remain so even now. We have to implement our strategy of test, track and treat with same efficacy,” the Prime Minister said, even as he emphasised “cent percent testing of serious influenza cases and genome sequencing of the positive cases.”

Upgrading the health infrastructure and medical manpower were also amongst the points that the PM spoke of.

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