Only around 51% health workers have taken 2nd vaccine dose in Delhi

Just over half the health care workers in the city who received a shot of the coronavirus vaccine during the first two days of the inoculation drive have returned for their second shot in the two days since the state government began administering the final dose of the jab, district data shows

Just over half the health care workers in the city who received a shot of the coronavirus vaccine during the first two days of the inoculation drive have returned for their second shot in the two days since the state government began administering the final dose of the jab, district data shows. So far, 4,047, or 51.1%, of health care workers have received the second dose of the vaccine, including 2,191 who turned up to get the second dose of the vaccine on Monday.

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Beneficiaries who received a dose of the coronavirus vaccine on January 16, when the nationwide inoculation programme kicked off, were eligible to get the second dose on Saturday. While 1,856 health care workers received the second shot on Saturday, experts said they hoped the turnout would significantly increase after the weekend.

Both the vaccines being administered in the country, Covaxin and Covishield, require two doses be given four to six weeks apart, as per the national drug regulator. However, some data suggests that the vaccine by Oxford/Astrazeneca (whose Indian variant is covishield) has better efficacy if administered after 12 weeks.

“There are a lot of messages going around among doctors and other healthcare workers that the immune response is better when the doses are given 12 weeks apart. This may be a reason many might want to wait till the six week cut-off to get the shot,” Dr Suneela Garg, professor of community medicine at Maulana Azad Medical College had told HT on Saturday.

“The number of health care workers coming to the centres is slowly going down, with more and more frontline workers, especially police personnel, coming to get the shots. We have asked the healthcare workers who haven’t received the vaccine yet to do so at the earliest because we have to end the drive for them on February 20,” said a senior district official.

The central government has set a February 20 deadline to vaccinate all health care workers who want to get the shots, and March 1 for frontline workers. An additional five days will be allowed for “mop-up” activity to immunise anyone who is left out.