HYDERABAD: Telangana, which until the beginning of the month was struggling to motivate citizens to take the second dose of the vaccine, has witnessed a nearly nine percentage point growth in vaccination numbers in the last 14 days.
According to official data, the number of vaccinations has grown from 47.8 per cent on December 4 to 56.1 per cent on December 16, in the span of 12 days. This spike has helped Telangana narrow the gap between the State and national average of second dose.
Earlier, the State was behind the national average by about 2.2 per cent, but this gap has been reduced to 0.9 per cent as on December 16. However, State is lagging behind the national average which is at 57.01 per cent.
In terms of the first dose of vaccinations as well, the State has covered about 97.4 per cent of its eligible population as on December 16, which is nearly 9.6 per cent more than the national average which is still at 87.8 per cent.
State Health Department officials note that the renewed interest in vaccines is due to the efforts of the government officials who are going door-to-door as well as the fear of Omicron.
No cause for concern, health officials tell KCR
Health officials on Saturday briefed Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao about 12 more individuals in Telangana testing positive for the Omicron variant of Covid-19. They informed Rao that there was no major cause of concern and the situation was under control. This sharp rise has increased the total tally of those testing positive for the Omicron variant at Hyderabad airport to 20, with 19 of them being in Telangana and one in West Bengal.
Meanwhile, the State also reported 185 new Covid cases and 201 discharges, taking the tally of active cases to 3,761. One individual also died due of the virus, taking the overall death toll to 4,014.