India for Covid-19 vaccination of those over 50 and others after Mar 6

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A healthcare worker receives a Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine called COVAXIN at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi. (Photo courtesy: Reuters/Adnan Abidi)

(TibetanReview.net, Feb10’21) – India’s vaccination drive against Covid-19 will be ramped up, targeting a larger population group of around 26 crore people above 50 years soon as it is ready to face the tail-end of the pandemic, the timesofindia.com Feb 10 cited New Delhi as saying, underlining swift progress in controlling the spread of the infection along with an enlarged immunisation drive.

“Now, we are in a phase where we feel reassured, we feel safe and we can confidently say that we can face the rest of the problem, the tail-end of the problem effectively in times to come,” national think-tank NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr V K Paul was quoted as saying.

The report said a total of 65.2 lakh healthcare and front-line workers had received the vaccines against Covid-19 till Feb 9 evening.

The ndtv.com Feb 9 noted that while answering a question in Parliament on Feb 5, India’s health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had said, “It is difficult to announce any fixed date right now but it is expected that the third phase of the vaccination drive will start in the second, third or fourth week of March”.

The second phase, covering frontline workers, is to end on Mar 6.

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Meanwhile the latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 11,067 new Covid-19 cases and 94 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Feb 10 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 10,858,371 cases and 155,252 deaths respectively.

A total of 10,561,608, or 97.27%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 141,511, or 1.30% of the total. The case fatality rate remained at 1.43%. The percentage figures were mostly higher than those reported the day before.

The latest daily number of new cases, at 11,067, was less than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 13,087, leading to a decrease in the number of active cases by 2,114.

Ten states that reported the highest numbers of Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours were: Kerala (5,214), Maharashtra (2,515), Tamil Nadu (469), Bihar (422), Karnataka (366), Gujarat (234), Chhattisgarh (206), Punjab (185), Madhya Pradesh (167), and Telangana (157).

Seven states with the highest number of Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours were: Maharashtra (35), Kerala (19), Punjab (8), West Bengal (6), Tamil Nadu (4), Haryana (4), and Himachal Pradesh (3).

India is currently the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases and the fourth highest number of deaths in cumulative numbers.

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After remaining unchanged for five days, the cumulative number of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India, Nepal and Bhutan has increased by 3 to 1,522. Of them 1,449 had recovered, 32 were active and 41 had died, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as of Feb 10.

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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 106,965,011 and the deaths 2,342,808, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of 3:53 PM on Feb 10, 2021.

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