New Delhi: The second phase of Covid-19 vaccinations in India will start once 60-70 per cent target of the first phase is over.
In the first ten days since vaccinations started on 16 January, as many as 19,50,183 beneficiaries were vaccinated as of 7.10 pm Monday. This is about 19.5 per cent of the phase 1 target of 1 crore people.
Government officials, however, said it’s not possible to say when the phase one drive will come to an end as states have varying figures of vaccination.
But internal discussions have started in the government about launching phase 2 of the vaccinations, though there is no clarity yet on a date.
The first priority group for vaccination are healthcare providers and workers in healthcare settings, both government and private. The second group are frontline workers — about 2 crore of them. These include personnel from the state and central police departments, armed forces, home guard and civil defence organisation, including disaster management volunteers and municipal workers (excluding healthcare workers).
“We have not decided on a date for the start of phase 2 vaccinations. But what is clear internally is that once the first phase has reached about 60-70 per cent of the target, we should roll out phase 2,” said a senior government official, involved in the planning and rollout of vaccinations.
“After that, both priority groups will continue to be vaccinated simultaneously as we have earlier also said. More than one phase of inoculation can happen at one time,” the official added.
The largest chunk of beneficiaries, though, will be in phase 3 when people aged above 60 years, those above 50 years and those with identified comorbidities are vaccinated.
It is expected that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and various chief ministers who meet the criteria, besides other ministers will get vaccine shots once phase 3 starts.
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‘No dearth of vaccines’
While India has encountered an unexpected hurdle of vaccine hesitancy in the initial days, numbers are slowly picking up, with the government tightening the screw on rumour mongers and spreaders of misinformation.
The home ministry asked the states Monday to take penal action against those who are found to be involved in disseminating wrong and ill-informed news related to vaccines.
Though an impression was initially created that the limiting factor in vaccine rollout is the supply of doses, officials said that is no longer the case.
“If vaccines were the limiting factor, do you think we could have allowed exports of the vaccines to so many countries? The law allows companies to stockpile vaccines at their own risk and stockpiling was happening from well before the emergency use authorisation came through,” a second official said.
India has allowed exports of vaccines to Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Brazil, Bolivia and Seychelles.
The Government of India has committed to buying about 6 crore doses of the vaccines from Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, of which a little over 1.5 crore have already been delivered.
The vaccines are usable for six months and the first lot will expire in April. The vaccines also cannot be reused the next day once the vial has been opened.
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