Rajasthan begins administering precaution doses, Guv Mishra takes the jab

Visuals from news agency ANI showed senior citizens, frontline workers queuing up outside a vaccination centre in the capital city of Jaipur to take the booster dose on Monday morning.

Rajasthan on Monday began administering the booster dose of the Covid-19, also known as the precautionary dose. The beneficiaries for this dose include health care and frontline workers, and people with comorbidities (suffering from many diseases) and those above 60 years of age.

Rajasthan's governor Kalraj Mishra, who started Monday’s inoculation drive in the state, was administered the dose in Jaipur. (Raj Bhavan)

Visuals from news agency ANI showed senior citizens, frontline workers queuing up outside a vaccination centre in the capital city of Jaipur to take the booster dose on Monday morning.

Rajasthan's governor Kalraj Mishra, who started Monday’s inoculation drive in the state, was administered the dose in Jaipur.

According to Rajasthan's principal secretary (Medical Education) Vaibhav Galriya, people under the above categories amount to more than 2.4 million. The frontline workers are around 648,000 while the health care workers are at 517,000, Galriya said.

He added that the vaccine of all these beneficiaries will be updated after they are given the precautionary dose.

In total, Rajasthan has administered more than 84 million vaccine doses since the beginning of the inoculation drive in January last year. Nearly 48 million beneficiaries have received the first dose and 36,340,494 have received both doses.

As the Centre began inoculating children between the ages of 15-18 on January 3, more than 1.84 million such children have been given the jab in Rajasthan.

The state has so far recorded over 976,000 cases due to Covid-19 till now.

On Sunday, the state government announced a slew of restrictions including closing schools in urban areas, Sunday curfews, time limits on markets and a cap on occupancy at restaurants and cinema halls.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot said on Sunday that even though no lockdown has been imposed in Rajasthan, the state's population should behave like there is one by being vigilant.