Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal reveals COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan

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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said that the national capital is fully prepared for the COVID-19 vaccination and his government has made all arrangements to receive the vaccine from the Central government, its storage, and administering it to coronavirus patients. 

CM Arvind Kejriwal has also said that the Delhi government has identified 51 lakh people who will be the first ones to get Covid-19 vaccination in the city under the Central government’s “priority category”.

Addressing a digital press conference, he said currently Delhi has built and arranged storage capacity for 74 lakh doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. He said the storage capacity in the city will be increased further to 1.15 crore doses in a week’s time. He further said that each of the 51 lakh identified persons is being registered and an SMS will be sent to the person’s mobile number notifying him/her about the date, time and place of vaccination.

CM Arvind Kejriwal said, "There has been a significant decrease in daily deaths due to COVID-19, and we have to reduce it further. The recovery rate has also considerably increased and people who got infected are getting recovered and going back to their homes. But now, everyone is eyeing the vaccine. The Delhi government has made all arrangements and is ready to receive the vaccine doses form the Central government, to store it and to administer it to the identified people” 

The chief minister addressed the media after he held a high-level meeting with health officials and other stakeholders on Delhi’s vaccination strategy.

Kejriwal said the Central government’s “priority category” has been broken down to three parts: healthcare workers, frontline workers, and the elderly and those with comorbidities.

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“Our healthcare workers such as doctors, nurses, paramedic staff and so on will be the first ones to get the vaccine does in Delhi. We have identified 3 lakh healthcare workers who will be vaccinated. Next, will be the frontline workers which include police, civil defence volunteers and municipal workers. There are 6 lakh such persons. Third category is of those who are 50 years of age or above and those below 50 years who have co-morbid conditions.There are 42 lakh persons under the third category,” he said.

CM Kejriwal said each person will be given two doses of the coronavirus vaccine and the total estimated requirement of doses in Delhi as of now is 1.02 crore.

The chief minister said sufficient centres or camps will be set up for administering the vaccine doses. “In case anyone develops side-effects, we also have teams of specialists ready to treat such people,” he said.

Earlier in the day, CM Kejriwal chaired a meeting on the rolling out and administering of the vaccine in Delhi, wherein the health department officials gave a presentation on the preparedness of the plan.