Delhi govt begins offering free precaution dose for all adults

“All persons aged above 18 years and up to 59 years will now be eligible for precaution dose at government CVCs (Covid-19 Vaccination Centres) free of cost, in addition to healthcare workers, frontline workers, and above the age of 60 years beneficiaries. The provision of paid precaution dose in private CVCs will also continue to be available,” said an order from director of family welfare Dr Monika Rana.

Necessary changes have been made to government’s CoWIN portal to ensure people can book online appointments. Walk-in facilities will also be available. The Thursday order stated that directions have to be implemented from Thursday itself.

Experts have said that ensuring free vaccination would help in keeping severe disease low in places that have started seeing a surge. Dr Jacob John, former professor of virology at Christian Medical College-Vellore, said, “With cases starting to go up, it is also the time to push for booster dose in all. Having people pay for it is a deterrent, and it is too soon to make it paid-for.”

The city recorded 965 cases and one death on Thursday when 20,480 tests were conducted. The positivity rate, which shows the percentage of tests returning positive out of the total number of tests, stood at 4.71%.  This was a marginal dip from Wednesday when 1,009 cases were recorded.

With rising cases and hospitalisation remaining low — akin to the previous omicron-variant  — the Delhi government has adopted a wait and watch approach, with hospitals already prepared to increase beds for the viral infection at short notice.

The focus, however, is on increasing the number of tests to track the spread of the infection in the capital. “The number of tests has already started going up and it will increase further in the coming days. With hospitalisations remaining low, most people do not want to get tested. However,  we have issued directions to all our health facilities to mandatorily test all those coming in with ILI (influenza-like illness) to keep a track of what is going on,” said a senior official from Delhi’s health department.

As for the preparedness of hospitals if there is a surge in cases, most said they already have a plan in place and wards can quickly be converted.

“We already have separate wards, OTs, delivery rooms and dialysis units demarcated for Covid. For now, there are 250 beds earmarked for Covid patients with the rest of the services running normally. If there is an increase in cases, we can quickly convert these to Covid units. As of now, the number of admissions remains very low,” said a senior official from Lok Nayak hospital.

An official from AIIMS said the same: “There were only two admissions last week. In case there is an increase, we already have a plan in place.”