High Vaccination reduces COVID deaths during third wave: Govt

Union Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has said, in the last surge of Covid-19, on 30th April last year, there were three lakh 86 thousand new cases and around three thousand deaths. He said, currently on 20th January this year, there are three lakh 17 thousand new cases and 380 deaths reported. On vaccination status in the country, the health Secretary said that that 94 per cent of total adult population has received the first dose while 72 per cent has received the 2nd dose. He said, so far 52 per cent of the population aged between 16 to 18 years have been vaccinated with first dose. Bhushan has said that Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh are States of Concern in view of COVID surge. He said, Centre is in continuous contact with these states and reviewing the situation. Central teams have been sent to these states and have provided necessary guidance to these states.Bhushan said, India has around 19 lakh active Covid-19 cases at present. He said, over the last week, an average of two lakh 71 thousand daily cases and a positivity of 15.91 per cent has been reported. He said, 11 states have more than 50 thousand active cases, 13 states have ten to 50 thousand active cases and 12 states have less than ten thousand active cases. The health secretary said, around 99 per cent Covid patients have common symptoms of fever, cough, irritation in throat and it usually settles down after 5th day.

Speaking on the occasion, Director General of ICMR, Dr Balram Bhargava said, Vaccines have remained beneficial in India. He said, deaths have been considerably reduced due to vaccinations. In this third surge of COVID19, we are currently not witnessing severe illness and deaths due to high vaccination uptake.Meanwhile.India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has crossed 160 crore 32 lakh on Thursday. Union Health Ministry said that  more than 60 lakh Vaccine Doses have been administered till 7 pm today. More than 68 lakh Precaution Doses for the identified categories of beneficiaries for COVID vaccination have been administered so far.