Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday reiterated that the government has done away with the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. timeline for giving COVID-19 vaccination and that beneficiaries can take the vaccine round the clock. “The move is aimed at increasing the pace of the vaccination,” said the Minister in his tweet.
He further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi valued the health as well as the time of citizens of the country.
“The government has lifted the time restriction to increase the speed of vaccination. People can now get vaccinated 24x7 according to their convenience. Prime Minister Narendra Modi understands the value of health as well as the time of citizens,” Dr. Vardhan tweeted in Hindi.
On Tuesday, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan in a press conference announced that the timeline of vaccinating beneficiaries from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. had been done away with, and it was up to the hospitals to decide whether they wanted to continue administering vaccines even after that.
“CoWIN 2.0 allows flexibility of time and if a hospital has the capacity, the system permits it to do vaccination even after 5 p.m. in consultation with the State government. This has been briefed both to the State governments as well as the private and government hospitals,” he said.
The second phase of the COVID-19 vaccination commenced from March 1 for people over 60 years, and those aged 45 years and above with specified co-morbid conditions. The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16, 2021 and vaccination of frontline workers started from February 2, 2021.
The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 1.63 crore on Wednesday as per the provisional report till 7 pm.
Numbers so far
“These include 67,75,619 Health Care Workers (HCW) who have taken the 1st dose and 28,24,311 HCWs who have taken the 2nd dose, 57,62,131 Frontline workers (1stdose), 3,277 FLWs (2nd dose), 8,44,884 beneficiaries more than 60 years old and 1,04,263 beneficiaries aged 45 and above with specific co-morbidities,” said a release issued by the Ministry.
It added that total 6,92,889 vaccine doses were given till 7 pm on March 3, the forty-seventh day of nationwide COVID19 vaccination. Out of which 5,79,366 beneficiaries were vaccinated for 1st dose and 1,13,523 HCWs and FLWs received 2nd dose of vaccine as per the provisional report.
