With the State having administered nearly 9,23,690 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine till 7.30 p.m. on Wednesday during the weekly ‘Lasika Utsav’ campaign, over 67.3% of the 4,50,61,519 who have taken the first dose in the State have been fully vaccinated so far.
The number of doses administered this Wednesday is over 20% more than last Wednesday’s coverage. With a total of 9,23,690 doses administered till 7.30 p.m, the total number of doses touched 7,54,00383. Of these, 4,50,61,519 are first doses and 3,03,38,864 are second doses.
Omicron scare
The State that had crossed seven crore doses on November 20 administered over 54 lakh doses in the last 10 days. In fact, there has been a rise in the number of people turning up at vaccination centres to get inoculated in the last six days following the Omicron scare. Since November 25 when 2,69,776 doses were administered, a total of 30,69,119 (including today’s numbers) have been administered in the last one week.
“After today’s coverage, we still have about 39.5 lakh people who are due for the second dose. We have also extended the ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ campaign till December end wherein our health workers will visit door to door to motivate people and get them to the vaccination centres for the jab. This campaign has so far received a good response,” said Arundathi Chandrashekar, State Mission Director, National Health Mission.
Hoping more people will turn up during the ‘lasika utsava’ campaign, the Health Department had fixed a target of inoculating 30 lakh people on Wednesday. “We are hopeful of crossing over 10 lakh by the end of the day today,” she said.
With a target population of 4.89 crore, the State has a task of administering a total of 9.78 crore doses (first and second doses included). With 7.54 crore doses administered till date, the State has achieved a cumulative coverage of 77%. The challenge is to administer the remaining 2.24 crore doses. By the end of Wednesday, the State had a stock of 72 lakh doses.
Seventh place
The State is now in the seventh position in the country after Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. On September 17, during the mega vaccination drive that coincided with the birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the State had achieved a milestone with the total number of vaccinations crossing five crore. It took over 75 days for it to administer another 2.5 two crore doses.
The State has been conducting special vaccination camps every Wednesday with a target to administer 10 lakh doses.
However, with not many people coming forward to get jabbed, the State has been able to administer around five to six lakh doses only every Wednesday.
COVID-19 vaccination was rolled out on January 16 for healthcare workers followed by frontline workers in the first and second phases.
