Fewer health and frontline workers show up for second dose on Wednesday following Centre’s announcement on increasing the gap between two shots of Covishield
This picture has been used for representational purpose
In contrast to citizens’ reluctance for Covaxin in initial days, more and more Mumbaikars are agreeing to get the shots. Vaccine-seekers do not have a choice between Covaxin and Covishield, but they were more keen for the latter earlier.
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Covaxin, which was first given only in state-run JJ hospital, is now being supplied to civic-run hospitals and private hospitals.
On Wednesday, 34,633 people were administered the vaccines. The number of health and frontline workers coming for the second dose further reduced due to the revised the gap between the two shots.
On Wednesday, 29,321 Covishield and 5,312 Covaxin doses were administered. “There isn’t any difference between the two vaccines. Both have the same result. Earlier people had some resistance but now they are willingly taking it,” said a BMC official.
Up until now, 9,02092 doses of Covishield vaccine have been given compared to 71,731 doses of Covaxin.
As per Centre’s latest guidelines, the gap between two doses of Covishield has been increased from 28 days to 6 to 8 weeks, whereas it has remained unchanged for Covaxin. Though it will take one or two days to implement the new time gap through the CoWin app, fewer health and frontline workers turned up for their second dose.
A total number of 3,918 such workers received the jabs on Wednesday. Earlier, the daily figures for such workers used to be 7,000-8,000. So far, 1.32 lakh people have taken the second dose of Covishield.
Figure was 40k earlier
On Wednesday, 18,194 senior citizens got the vaccines, while 4,071 were above 45 years of age with comorbidities. The number of vaccine-seekers had crossed 40,000 in the second week of March.