Only 50% covered, Delhi may continue jabs for health staff

As per the Centre’s guideline all states were to freeze the immunisation for healthcare workers by February 20 and allow for an additional five-day period for a “mop up” round to immunise as many as possible.

Senior officials in the Delhi government said they are unlikely to close the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination drive for health care workers for now, with just over half of all registered beneficiaries in the category inoculated as on Saturday, underlining the hurdles that administrations face to overcome turnouts that have fallen short of the Centre’s expectations.

With no vaccination drive on Sunday, this effectively left just four days for around 120,000 health care professionals in Delhi who are yet to get the shot. (Representative Image) (REUTERS/File Photo)

“We cannot close the drive for health care professionals just yet because there is still a large proportion of beneficiaries who have not received a dose,” said a senior official from Delhi’s health department, adding that vaccine hesitancy was still rampant among several eligible beneficiaries in the Capital.

As per the Centre’s guideline all states were to freeze the immunisation for healthcare workers by February 20 and allow for an additional five-day period for a “mop up” round to immunise as many as possible. The Delhi administration is now likely to vaccinate people past this mop-up period as well, as per senior state government officials.

With no vaccination drive on Sunday, this effectively left just four days for around 120,000 health care professionals in Delhi who are yet to get the shot. “This is unlikely to be enough. The central government had issued an advisory and Delhi is likely to continue the drive because many beneficiaries are still left,” said a second official, on condition of anonymity.

Delhi has been vaccinating over 24,000 people, health care and frontline workers, each day for the last three days, a rise that has coincided with an increase in the number of vaccination centres.

However, for the extended drive, the number of centres where health care workers can get the shot is likely to be restricted. Currently, there are about 306 vaccination sites across the city where medical staff can get a dose of their Covishield or Covaxin if their name is registered on the government’s CoWIN portal. A decision on how many centres will carry on vaccinating health care workers will be taken next week.

“For now, we are focussing on getting as many people come out and receive the vaccination during the five-day mop up drive,” said a senior district official.

“All heads of departments in hospitals have been asked to call up people working under them. Nodal officers in vaccine centres have been asked to ensure that all health workers registered at their centres who are yet to take their first Covid-19 shot,” said a third senior government official who did not wish to be identified.

Delhi is among the seven states and union territories where the vaccine coverage for healthcare workers is less than 50%. As per the health ministry’s provisional data, only 48.2% had been immunised till Saturday evening when the vaccination drive was to close. However, Delhi government’s final data shows that 131,854 healthcare workers received the shot till Saturday evening, accounting for 50.7% of nearly 240,000 registered beneficiaries.

The immunisation for frontline workers, on the other hand, has so far seen better turnouts, with 153,037 having already received their first shot. This accounts for 43.7% of the registered frontline workers in the city, according to Delhi government data.

The immunisation for frontline workers started on February 2 across the country and will come to an end on March 1, after which a five-day mop-up period will be in place for beneficiaries under the group.

“The vaccination among frontline workers has been faster. The healthcare workers, especially doctors, have been following the vaccine development and approval process closely and hence have more apprehensions,” said the first government official.

As for the second shot, only 43.6% of those who had received the first shot over 28 days ago in Delhi have received it. “This is because of the strong message among the healthcare workers that delaying the second shot will provide better immunity,” said the official.