Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said that his government was prepared to receive, store and provide vaccines to the priority category persons in the city. He stated that there were 51 lakh people including healthcare & frontline workers who would get the vaccine in the first phase.
Addressing a digital press conference, the chief minister said that Delhi has built and arranged storage capacity for 74 lakh doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. He said the storage capacity in the city will be increased further to 1.15 crore doses in a week’s time.
Delhi govt is fully prepared for COVID vaccination https://t.co/ywMxsQOBgN
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) December 24, 2020
“Delhi government has completed all preparations & is ready for vaccination. There are around 51 lakh people including healthcare & frontline workers who would get the vaccine in the first phase. The process of identification of all such people is almost complete,” Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.
He further said that Delhi would need 1.02 crore doses of vaccine for the first phase of vaccination since each person will get two doses. “Currently, we have the capacity to store 74 lakh doses which will be increased to 1.15 crore within one week,” he added.
Kejriwal addressed the media after he held a high-level meeting with health officials and other stakeholders on Delhi’s vaccination strategy.
He said the Central government’s “priority category” has been broken down into three parts: healthcare workers, frontline workers, and the elderly, and those with comorbidities.
“Our healthcare workers such as doctors, nurses, paramedic staff, and so on will be the first ones to get the vaccine does in Delhi. We have identified 3 lakh healthcare workers who will be vaccinated. Next, will be the frontline workers which include police, civil defense volunteers, and municipal workers. There are 6 lakh such persons. The third category is of those who are 50 years of age or older and those below 50 years who have co-morbid conditions. There are 42 lakh persons under the third category,” said Kejriwal.
He also assured that if there any adverse effects of the vaccine, doctors, and specialists have been kept on standby for the treatment.
Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said that the COVID-19 outbreak seems to be mellowing down in the capital with a less than 1 per cent positivity rate on Wednesday. Briefing the media, Jain said, “There were 871 positive cases in Delhi yesterday and the positivity rate was 0.99 per cent which means it was less than 1 per cent. For the last three days, less than 1,000 cases have surfaced per day. The infection rate has remained below 2 percent for a few days.