‘Need to buy time to vaccinate large population’: Centre on Covid third wave

India has overtaken the US in terms of number of people who have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, the government on Friday said and noted that the vaccination campaign will be further intensified in the coming days. Addressing a press conference, NITI Aayog Member (Health) V K Paul said 43 per cent of the 60 plus population has been covered with at least one dose and over 45 years, 37 per cent of the population has been covered."It is not the wish of the virus to forget us but we are making it difficult for the virus to travel. The connotation is when we reverse this process the situation can again become unacceptable and that is something we need to keep in mind," he said. He said if containment measures, COVID-19 appropriate behaviour or vaccination pace slackens, the situation can again go into a difficult phase. Watch the full video for more details.