Delhi: Second dose begins for children, camps at schools from today

As many as 4,576 children received their second shot of the vaccine till Monday 6 pm in Delhi – accounting for 21.7% of those who became eligible when the Covid-19 vaccination drive opened up for the second dose in children between the ages of 15 and 17 years. There were 21,029 children who had received their first shot on January 3, when the vaccination drive was opened for the age group, and became eligible for their second shot this Monday after completing the 28-gap period between two shots of Covaxin.

The children are eligible to receive only Covaxin shots.

There were 13,604 shots administered to children in total till Monday evening, according to data from the government’s CoWIN portal. In comparison, an average of 9,001 shots were administered to children every day over the last seven days.

“The second dose opened for children today, but the response wasn’t great. This is because the shots were only being administered at our designated vaccine centres today; we will start organising camps at schools tomorrow onwards. We started the camp mode a day later when the vaccination began for children at the beginning of the month. Now that children are aware that the camps will happen in the schools, most are opting to get their shots there itself,” said an official from Delhi’s health department.

Another district official said they are hoping that the numbers will increase Tuesday onwards as the camps begin.

So far, at least 8,06,109 children have been administered their first dose of Covaxin in the capital, accounting for 77.5% of the estimated children between the age group in Delhi.

There were 76,185 total shots administered on Monday till 6 pm, slightly higher than the median 70,301 shots administered during the previous week. There were only 10,095 shots administered in total on Sunday, when the number of people getting the shots usually decreases. In comparison, last Sunday 11,723 shots were administered, and the week before 23,579.

The Indian Express had reported that the immunisation drive in Delhi has been reaching a saturation point – 100% of adults have received their first dose in the capital and over 82% have received their second dose.

“The numbers will increase a little again as we start giving the children their second dose of the vaccine from January 31,” said the official, adding that the number of people receiving precaution doses is likely to increase after three months as most people who are eligible had the infection during the January surge in cases. The government guidelines state that a shot has to be given after a gap of three months from an infection.

So far, 2,71,310 precaution doses have been administered in the capital. There are a total of 9,70,000 healthcare workers, frontline workers, and people over the age of 60 years with co-morbidities eligible for the precaution doses. They keep becoming eligible as per the government’s CoWIN portal as they keep completing a period of nine months since their second dose. The persons currently eligible are the most vulnerable and the first to receive the vaccines after the vaccination drive was rolled out in January last year.