Covid vaccination opens for 15-18 years, 22.5% surge in daily cases: Key points | India News

NEW DELHI: A special Covid-19 vaccination drive for children in the 15 to 18 age group was launched across the country from Monday morning, amid clear signs of the beginning of a fresh Covid wave in the country.
The Centre has informed states that only Covaxin is to be administered in this population category and additional doses of ‘Covaxin’ will be sent to all States and UTs.
Daily case count continues on an upward trajectory. India logged 33,750 new cases on Monday- up 22.5% from 27,553 on Jan 2.
For perspective, just about a fortnight back, the daily count was 6,984 on December 15.
Fresh Covid wave sweeping country
Several states have seen an uptick in the daily case count, but the surge has been led by Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Bihar and a few others.
In Maharashtra, the daily case count was 684 on December 14; that climber to 9170 on the first day of the new year.
Similarly in West Bengal, daily case count has spiked from 418 on December 13 to 6153 on January 2. The state also witnessed a 11-fold rise over the week, while for capital Kolkata the rise was 14 times.
Delhi too on Sunday witnessed the highest single day spike since May 20, and a positivity of 4.59% However chief minister Kejriwal assuaged fears, saying most of the new cases are mild and asymptomatic and don’t require hospitalisation. He also said that only a fraction of the dedicated Covid beds in Dekhi hospitals are occupied, and the city can deal with any situation.

Vaccination for 15-18 years opens
Children between 15-18 years opened on Monday morning. Registration opened on the first day of the new year, and by late evening on January 2, over 7.6 lakh beneficiaries had registered themselves on the Co-Win app.
Initially only Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin will be used to inoculate this age group. Schools have been roped in for the inoculaton drive for children.

In pics: Vaccination begins for 15-18 years
PM Modi had announced in an address to the nation on Christmas that vaccination of 15-18 years will begin from January 3.
He had also said that healthcare and frontline workers and those above 60 years already having other ailments will be eligible for a booster shot, 9 months from the date of administering the 2nd shot.

Omicron cases continue to rise
The number of Covid patients infected with the Omicron variant has climbed to 1,700, as per health ministry release on January 3. The count was at 1,525 on January 2.
Maharashtra with 510 cases tops the list, followed by Delhi with 351. Kerala, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala too have all registered over 100 cases of Omicron infection.
The variant has been confirmed in 23 states/UTs so far after being first detected in the country in Karnataka, early in December.