Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday received his second dose of the Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin vaccine and exhorted all those who are eligible in the country to get themselves inoculated soon.
“Vaccination is among the few ways we have, to defeat the virus,' PM Modi tweeted with a picture of him receiving the shot. PM Modi urged all eligible people to get inoculated. "If you are eligible for the vaccine, get your shot soon," he said.
The PM also shared a link to the CoWin website, a portal to register for the vaccine. "Register on http://CoWin.gov.in," tweeted PM Modi.
The Prime Minister’s call comes at a time when the second Covid-19 wave is surging in the country and the authorities are stepping up the vaccination campaign against the deadly disease.
Vaccination at offices
The Centre has now decided to allow vaccinations to take place at all offices both government and private with more than 100 people above 45 years of age willing to take the shots. The Union health ministry has asked the state governments to implement the move from April 11. This will help accelerate the vaccination drive which has now covered 8.84 crore people in the country. Over 13 lakh vaccine doses were administered on Wednesday, as the inoculation drive entered the 82nd day. Out of these 12,04,551 beneficiaries were vaccinated for the first dose and 1,10,072 beneficiaries received the second dose of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, there were 115,736 fresh cases of Covid-19 reported on Wednesday , the highest in a day so far. The net increase of 55,250 in active coronavirus cases, the most in a day so far, to take its count to 843,473. This is over 82 per cent of the September 18 peak of 1,017,754. India’s share of global active coronavirus cases now stands at 3.69 per cent (one in 29).
There were 630 deaths registered due to Covid-19 on Wednesday taking the total death toll due to the disease 166,177, or 1.30 per cent of total confirmed infections.
Worst-hit states
Overall, five states with the biggest 24-hour jump in total cases are Maharashtra (55469), Chhattisgarh (9921), Karnataka (6150), Uttar Pradesh (5895), and Delhi (5100).
Among states with more than 25,000 cases, the five with worst recovery rates at present are Maharashtra (82.98%), Chhattisgarh (85.28%), Punjab (87.11%), Chandigarh (88.11%), and Madhya Pradesh (91.01%).
India on Tuesday conducted 1,208,329 coronavirus tests to take the total count of tests conducted so far in the country to 251,439,598. The test positivity rate recorded was 13.8%.
