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After June’s 10 million milestone, UP govt aims at 100 million Covid vaccine doses by Aug 31
The Uttar Pradesh government plans to start administering a million Covid-19 vaccine doses each day from July 1
The Uttar Pradesh government has raised the bar after having reached the milestone of one crore (10 million) Covid vaccine doses for the month of June six days ahead of schedule.
It is now aiming to administer a minimum of 10 lakh (one million) doses each day from July 1 and cross the mark of 10 crore (100 million) doses by August 31. Till Thursday, the state administered 2.9 crore (29 million) vaccine doses, nearly 13% of the total population of the state, according to official statistics.
If the state reaches the 10-crore mark by August 31, the total number of doses administered in the state would have covered 43% of the total population (at least one dose).
The state government considers UP’s population to be 23 crore. (This includes 20 crore, according to the 2011 Census, plus three crore as per the decadal population rise calculated at the same rate at which population increased between 2001 and 2011).
Experts say vaccinating such large numbers will certainly help in protecting people against the virus, even the mutations.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath said at a high-level Covid review meeting on Friday: “Vaccination is an effective safety shield against Covid infection. The state government had set the target of giving one crore jabs in June and the target was achieved on June 24, six days ahead and the state has so far given 2.9 crore doses of the vaccine. Forty-two lakh people got both the doses. From July 1, the daily target is a minimum 10 lakh doses each day and we should work according to this target.”
Additional chief secretary (information) Navneet Sehgal said that the state aimed to reach the 10-crore mark by August 31.
With 42 lakh (4.2 million) people having got both doses, it means about 1.8% of UP’s total population is fully vaccinated.
Prof Kauser Usman, head of the department of geriatric medicine at King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, said: “We can hope that if a big number, like 1-12 crore, is vaccinated with even the first dose, it will certainly help develop antibodies. People, even if getting sick with Covid, shall have mild symptoms and recover faster.”
Regarding the mutants (Delta or Delta-Plus variants of coronavirus), Dr Sheetal Verma, senior faculty at the department of microbiology, KGMU, said: “All vaccines are cross protective. Hence, if mutation happens in the virus, it will cover them also to some extent. We should hope that more people being vaccinated will help face the infection with better preparedness.”
The state has already adopted a cluster system mainly in the rural areas and the urban municipal wards to saturate geographic regions with vaccination.
“Under the cluster system, the idea is to put a group of villages in a cluster and (treat) a group of municipal wards as clusters and administer all in the eligible age groups in those clusters in a week’s time,” said a senior government official, explaining the system.
Yogi Adityanath on Friday said that the cluster system was rolled out in one-third of the development blocks in the state. From July 1, it will be implemented in the entire state.
Prelim results of sero-survey indicate high level of antibodies: Yogi
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday also mentioned the sero-survey done in UP early this month.
He said: “The initial indications of the survey hint at good results. Preliminary results of the survey indicate the presence of a high level of antibodies in the people sample surveyed.”
