NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday appealed to the Centre to provide free Covid-19 vaccine to everyone. The AAP government has already announced that the vaccine, whenever it is available, will be provided free to people in the national capital.
“Coronavirus is the century’s biggest pandemic. It is important to protect our people from it. I appeal to the Central government to ensure that everyone gets the free vaccine. The expenditure on this will save many lives,” Kejriwal tweeted.
India will launch its Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16 with priority to be given to nearly three crore healthcare and frontline workers. The Delhi Cabinet Secretary took a meeting through video-conference on public health response to Covid-19 to review preparations for the vaccination.
“The Delhi government is fully prepared to receive, store and administer Covid-19 vaccine to 51 lakh priority category persons in the city in the first phase of vaccination. The vaccine will be provided free to everyone on Delhi,” Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said last week.
Meanwhile, Delhi recorded 519 fresh Covid-19 cases on Saturday, the third time the daily incidences count stood above the 500-mark in January, even as the positivity rate remained much below one per cent. The infection tally in the city stood at 6.29 lakh and the death toll mounted to 10,666.
The active cases tally on Saturday dropped to 3,683 from 3,779 the previous day, while the positivity rate was recorded at 0.65 per cent. These 519 new cases came out of the 80,275 tests conducted the previous day, including 45,079 RT-PCR tests and 35,196 rapid antigen tests, according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.
The bulletin said that the total number of cases has climbed to 6,29,801, while the recovery rate was over 97 per cent. Out of the total number of 12,166 beds in Covid hospitals, 10,709 are vacant. 70 beds in Covid care centres are occupied by persons under quarantine, including travellers who have returned by the Vande Bharat Mission and bubble flights.
The number of tests done per million, as on Friday was over 4.9 lakh while the total number of tests stood at over 93 lakh. The bulletin said that 6,15,452 patients have recovered, been discharged or migrated so far. The number of containment zones in Delhi dropped to 2,951 on Thursday from 2,965 the previous day, authorities said. The number of people in home isolation dropped to 1,652 on Thursday from 1,807 the previous day.
51 lakh shots in phase I
In Delhi, the vaccine will be administered to 51 lakh persons from priority category in the first phase of vaccination.