Over 50% of total jabs go to 18-45 category in Noida

Despite their late inclusion in the vaccination drive, people in the 18-45 age group have been administered 50% of the vaccines in Gautam Budh Nagar so far

Despite their late inclusion in the vaccination drive, people in the 18-45 age group have been administered 50% of the vaccines in Gautam Budh Nagar so far.

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“Out of around 943,00 vaccines administered in the district so far, this age group (18-45 years) are nearly 500,000, which is over 53% of the total vaccination in the district. And this despite that this age group was included in inoculation drive after many rounds for senior citizens, people over 45 years, healthcare workers and frontline workers. Till date, as many as 829,388 persons have taken their first dose of vaccine against Covid-19, while 113,273 have taken both their shots,” said district magistrate Suhas L Y.

On whether this meant that the vulnerable group, 45+ years, were being left out, the DM said that 114,000 people from this group had got both their shots.

“Till date, exclusive vaccination sites for 45+ age have seen good turnout. We are working to ensure providing at least one dose of vaccination to everyone till July 31. The cause of higher turnout in the 18-45 age group is because they comprise nearly 55% of the district’s population eligible for inoculation,” he said.

The district administration has also chalked out plans to inoculate the 1.6 million eligible population at least once by the end of July this year. The state government had earlier ordered all districts to start inoculating 1 million people every day beginning July 1.

The DM also said this will begin with a mega vaccination drive in Dadri and Jewar blocks from June 21.

“Each block will be divided into 10 sectors – from where the dedicated health officials will keep a tab on the speed of vaccination in those areas,” he said.

Chief medical officer (CMO), Dr Deepak Ohri, said that a total of 62,994 cases have been recorded in the district so far, and the recovery rate has now crossed 99% with 62,379 recoveries out of it.

“After a security and fire safety solutions firm put lakhs of residents of the district at risk of contracting the virus in April last year, we were left with no solutions on how to make them safe. But, timely tracking, testing and treating the patients finally brought out desirable results. It was really a commendable effort of our teams of doctors and health workers, we put all areas under strict surveillance and started massive testing, particularly in critical areas. We’ve so far tested 1,245,470 samples in the district. Now, while our recovery rate is over 99%, the fatality rate is nearly 0.74%,” the CMO said.