The second phase of the national coronavirus vaccination dry run will be conducted today as India prepares to receive the first shipment of Covishield – the Covid-19 vaccine created by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and produced by the Serum Institute of India.
About 25 health workers will get dummy vaccinations at each site during the day-long exercise, which is intended to test the processes and expose potential vulnerabilities in the system ahead of the actual Covid vaccination campaign.
What is a dry run?
A testing session in which a sample number of recipients will go through a mock immunization procedure is essentially known as a dry run.
Who’s going to participate in the dry run?
About 1.7 lakh vaccinators and 3 lakh team members were trained for beneficiary verification, vaccination process, management of the cold chain and logistics, management of bio-medical waste, and management of adverse events after immunization (AEFI), and operation of the software Co-WIN.
The objective of the dry run
The goal of the dry run exercise is to test the relations and recognize the challenges between planning and execution. It will also assess the operational viability of using the CoWIN framework in a field environment—a digital tool to carry out and scale up the vaccination campaign.
Where will the dry run be carried out?
The dry run on Friday will take place at three-session locations in 736 districts across 33 states and Union Territories (UTs) to prepare for an imminent rollout.
In the meantime, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Arunachal Pradesh will not participate in this dry-run mock exercise, as they have already done in all their districts.
Dry run centers as announced by states:
- Karnataka: Health Minister Dr. K. Sudhakar said that a dry run of Covid vaccines will take place in 263 locations across the state. He also said that 6.30 lakh healthcare staff serving both the government and the private sector have registered for vaccination and the registration window is still open.
- Madhya Pradesh: Madhya Pradesh’s Indore will conduct a mock drill and be held in four centers. Dr. Amit Malakar, Covid Nodal Officer, said the mock drill will be performed in four centers in Indore and for 25 people each.
- Delhi: Health officials will execute the second dry run for the Covid vaccination roll-out in Delhi, which will run through many districts of the city. Districts include South Delhi, South East Delhi, North West Delhi, and New Delhi, they said.
- Puducherry: The second dry run of coronavirus vaccination is currently taking place in nine centers across the state.
- Maharashtra: Dry run for vaccination against Covid will take place in 30 districts and 25 municipal corporate areas. The mock drill exercise is being performed to identify logistical problems that could occur in the real immunization drive.
Mumbai: BKC Jumbo dedicated COVID19 hospital to take part in the second nationwide vaccine dry run today pic.twitter.com/Kyxak3iZ3I
— ANI (@ANI) January 8, 2021
- Tamil Nadu-A dry run for coronavirus vaccination will take place in all districts today, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan said earlier.
Tamil Nadu: Preparation underway at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai for the second dry run for COVID19 vaccine.
"All the arrangements have been done. We have appointed four vaccinator officers to conduct the dry run here," says Dean of the hospital pic.twitter.com/FC9umcUKSd
— ANI (@ANI) January 8, 2021
- Jharkhand: CM Hemant Soren has checked ongoing arrangements for vaccination and management of the cold chain in the state. As many as 99.89 lakh people have been reported for vaccination, including 1.5 lakh health workers made up of Anganwadi workers and 2 lakh frontline workers who will be vaccinated in the first step.
- Uttarakhand: Day-long exercise in preparation for the vaccination of Covid will take place in all 13 districts of the state. The mock drill will be held in 130 health centers throughout the state, 10 in each district.