Covid Booster dose starts for everyone

Everybody gets a shot; the first 10k under 60 get boosters.

Because the first day of the latest vaccination phase fell on a weekend and coincided with the festival of Ram Navmi, government officials had anticipated a slow start.

While only around 10,000 people in this age group had received the third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by 5.30pm on Sunday, according to government data, the latest phase of the country’s immunization drive kicked off on Sunday and began offering booster doses to those between the ages of 18 and 60.

Because the first day of the latest vaccination phase fell on a weekend and coincided with the festival of Ram Navmi, government officials had anticipated a slow start.

According to an anonymous senior health ministry official, “the precaution dose for 18+ category is very much live, even though the numbers may be very much negligible because it is Sunday, wherein the overall number of vaccinations today has been just around 200,000,” said the official.

Since the second and third doses of Covishield require nine months apart, the first few weeks of the vaccination drive are expected to be slow because it will only cover people ages 45 and older and those who received a shot of Covaxin, which has an even smaller dosing gap than Covishield.

There was no separate category for people between the ages of 18 and 60 on the CoWIN dashboard, which tracks India’s vaccination numbers, until late Sunday evening.

A total of 9,496 booster shots were given to those between the ages of 18 and 60, according to government data accessed by HT. There were 2,517 people in the 18-45 age group and 6,979 people in the 45-60 age group who received these doses.

According to the CoWIN dashboard, 11,218 precaution doses were given to people aged 60 and older up until 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, and 14,809 precaution doses were given to health care and frontline workers as a whole.

Between the ages of 18 and 60, 5,998 Covishield and 3,498 Covaxin precautionary doses were administered. If you’re between 18 and 45, 2,348 took Covaxin, and only 169 took the Covishield dose; if you’re 45 and older, 5,829 took Covisheld and 1,150 took Covaxin.