As Delhi witnesses an uptick in Covid-19 cases, the Arvind Kejriwal government has announced to provide free COVID-19 precautionary dose to beneficiaries in the 18-59 age group.
“In order to give the benefit of precaution dose to all eligible beneficiaries in Delhi, the same will be available for 18 to 59 years’ age group, free of cost in all government CVCs from April 21,” the health department said in an order.
The department said that necessary changes have been made in the Co-WIN portal for Delhi wherein both “online appointment and walk-in will be available”.
The administration of the precautionary or third dose of COVID-19 vaccine to the 18-plus population through private vaccination centres had started across the country on April 10.
The decision comes amid a spurt in the number of infections in the capital. Earlier on Wednesday, the government made the wearing of masks mandatory in public places and announced a fine of Rs 500 on violators, just eight days after it had relaxed this norm due to a decline in cases.
Delhi has also started genome sequencing of samples of all Covid-infected people to ascertain if a new variant, such as the XE, has spread in the city.
On Thursday, Delhi logged 965 fresh Covid cases in a day with a positivity rate of 4.71 per cent while one person died due to the infection, according to data shared by the city health department. A total of 20,480 tests were conducted in the city a day ago.
Delhi had reported one death and 1,009 Covid cases on Wednesday, the maximum since February 10, with a positivity rate of 5.7 per cent. On Tuesday, Delhi had reported 632 cases with a positivity rate of 4.42 per cent. A day before, the city reported 501 cases with a positivity rate of 7.72 per cent.
With the national capital seeing a spurt in COVID-19 cases in the past few days, the number of active cases has increased to 2,970 from 601 on April 11. However, the hospitalisation rate has so far been low, accounting for less than three per cent of the total active cases, as per the data.
Read more: COVID precautionary dose for 18+ available at private vaccination centres
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