(TibetanReview.net, Jan17’21) – A total of 1,91,181 healthcare and other frontline workers were given the first of two doses of Covid-19 injections on the first day Jan 16 of India’s mass vaccination drive. The numbers are planned to be increased in the coming days with the setting up of more vaccination centres.
In Delhi, a total of 52 healthcare workers of the 4,319 who received the Covid jab reported adverse events post vaccination. While 51 were reported to be minor events, one person reported severe effects and was referred to a hospital. He turned out to have undisclosed co-morbidities, suffering from high blood-pressure, sugar and liver problems. His blood pressure was high while receiving the vaccine that he did not disclose, which likely caused the impact. He was kept under observation for two hours and declared fine, reported the timesoindia.com Jan 17.
The vaccines currently being administered are either Covishield, developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and manufactured by Serum Institute of India, or Covaxin, developed by India’s Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and National Institute of Virology.
The Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) of Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital have requested that its members be vaccinated with Covishield, since they “are a bit apprehensive about the lack of complete trial in case of Covaxin and might not participate in huge numbers.”
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has insisted, however, that “both vaccines are equally good and safe.”
***
Meanwhile the latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 15,144 new cases and 181 new Covid-19 deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Jan 17 at 8AM, taking their cumulative totals to 10,557,985 cases and 152,274 deaths.
A total of 10,196,885, or 96.58%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 208,826, or 1.98% of the total. The case fatality rate remained at 1.44%. The percentage figures were mostly improvement over the previous day’s percentage figures.
The latest daily number of new cases, at 15,144, was less than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 17,170, leading to a decrease in the number of active cases by 2,207.
The country’s fifth worst-hit state of Kerala continued to report the highest daily new infections at 5,960, followed successively by the country’s worst-hit state of Maharashtra (2,910), eighth worst-hit West Bengal (609), second-worst hit Karnataka (584), fourth worst-hit Tamil Nadu (610), Chattisgarh (566), seventh-worst hit Uttar Pradesh (523), Gujarat (505), Madhya Pradesh (365), … Himachal Pradesh (71), and so on.
The 181 daily new deaths included 52 from Maharashtra; 27 from Kerala; 15 from West Bengal; 14 from Punjab; 12 from Uttar Pradesh; 6 each from Delhi and Tamil Nadu; 7 from Chattisgarh; 4 each from Haryana, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Bihar and Assam; 5 from Madhya Pradesh; 3 each from Gujarat and Goa; … 1 each from Himachal Pradesh and three other states.
India is currently the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases and the third highest number of deaths in cumulative numbers.
***
The cumulative total of Covid-19 cases among Tibetans in India, Nepal and Bhutan has remained unchanged for the second day at 1,479. Of them 1,411 had recovered, 31 were active and 37 had died, according to the tally of the Central Tibetan Administration Jan 17.
***
Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 94,544,494 and the deaths 2,023,095, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of 2:51 PM on Jan 17, 2021.
