India began its Phase 3 of the COVID-19 vaccination drive from Thursday, 1 April, even as the country is witnessing a more severe second wave of COVID-19 cases.
The third phase is for all people above the age of 45, with or without co-morbidities.
According to data shared by the Centre, the cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India crossed 6.75 crore on Thursday, with a total of 6,75,36,392 vaccine doses having been given, as per the provisional report till 8 pm.
17,47,094 doses of vaccine were administered till 8 pm on Thursday, which also marked the 76th day of nationwide COVID-19 vaccination. Of these, 16,20,746 people received their first dose of the vaccine, while 1,26,348 were given their second dose.
Many Union Ministers Get Vaccinated
Union Minister Piyush Goyal took his first dose of the vaccine at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi. The Minister of Railways urged all eligible citizens to take the vaccine.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, along with this wife YS Bharati, inaugurated the third phase in Andhra Pradesh, and got the jab at Guntur.
Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur also received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, at the Parliament House Annexe in New Delhi.
“Please continue to follow precautions, spread awareness and exercise health safety measures,” the Union minister tweeted.
Steep Rise in Daily Cases in India
The Centre on Thursday informed that Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are showing a steep rise in the daily new cases, with 84.61 percent of the new cases only being reported from these eight states.
Maharashtra has been seeing the biggest surge of daily cases and led with over 61 percent of the active caseload.
As per the data released on 30 March, 1.3 crore were administered to healthcare workers and 1.2 crore to frontline workers.
The government also announced that vaccination will be conducted every day in April, including gazetted holidays, at all public and private COVID-19 vaccination centres.
Taking into consideration that at present, the national average of COVID vaccine wastage is 6 percent, the states were also advised to keep the vaccination wastage below 1 percent.
Meanwhile, India’s drug regulator, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has increased the shelf life of Covishield, the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, from six to nine months from its manufacturing date, PTI reported.
On Thursday, the data from the Union Health Ministry showed that India recorded 72,330 new cases, taking the overall count in the country to 1,22,21,665. The total active cases recorded stand at 5,84,055, and the death toll climbed by 459 to 1,62,927.
The second phase of the vaccination drive, which had begun on 1 March, was for people above the age of 60 and people above the age of 45, without co-morbidities.
1 April also marks the opening of the Co-WIN portal for registration and booking of appointments for all eligible citizens.
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