Vaccine dry run at 8 centres in Delhi today
On Tuesday, the city added 442 new cases of Covid-19 to its tally, taking the total to over 627,000 cases so far. Another 12 deaths reported in the daily health bulletin took the toll to 10,609.
Delhi has prepared for another round of dry runs for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccination drive at several centres run by the municipal corporations as the city reported fewer than 1,000 cases of the viral infection for the twelfth day in a row.
On Tuesday, the city added 442 new cases of Covid-19 to its tally, taking the total to over 627,000 cases so far. Another 12 deaths reported in the daily health bulletin took the toll to 10,609.
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With few cases even as the city conducted almost 80,000 tests, the positivity rate – proportion of samples that return positive among total tested – to 0.55%. The positivity rate in the city has remained below 1% for nine days now indicating that the spread of the infection is in control.
This comes even as the city has reported 13 cases of infections with the new UK variant, eight of whom are Delhi residents. The new variant has at least 23 mutations, one of which is in the receptor binding domain of the spike protein that is used by the virus to enter the human cells. Experts believe that the new variant is 70% more transmissible that the ones currently in circulation, sparking fears of a surge again.
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The number of people hospitalised with the infection has remained below 2,000 for three days now for the first time since the numbers started increasing in May-end.
The vaccination dry run will be held on Wednesday at Hindu Rao hospital and Kasturba hospital of the north corporation and six polyclinics and maternal and child welfare centres under the South Corporation in Hari Nagar, Madipur, Bijwasan, Sriniwas Puri, Fatehpur Beri, and Defence Colony.
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The dry run helps in addressing any functional issues that might arise when the actual vaccination drives begin. Two vaccines – by Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech – have already received emergency use authorisation from the country’s apex drug regulator and the union health ministry plans to roll them out within ten days.