All Covishield doses now reserved as second dose

New Delhi: On account of the limited supply of Covid vaccines from the Centre, the Delhi government on Thursday issued an order to reserve Covishield shots only for beneficiaries whose second dose is due, across all its vaccination centres till July 31.

And with 80 per cent of Covaxin stocks also reserved for those due for their second dose, just about 50,000 doses of vaccines are available (as of Thursday morning) for those wishing to take their first dose

According to the latest data from the Delhi government, around 72 lakh people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, whereas around 22 lakh have received both doses.

A total of over 95 lakh doses have been administered in the Capital so far.

The pace of vaccination in Delhi has been intermittent — in correspondence with the intermittent supply chain. Due to the regular delays in the supply of vaccines, the pace has been disruptive.

However, what is of note is that the supply is too less for Delhi to get even close to its daily capacity.

According to an analysis of data from July so far, the city has administered over 1 lakh vaccinations only on six days - the maximum being 1,61,901 on July 3.

But according to the Delhi government, the city is capable of administering over 2.2 lakh shots every day across over 700 vaccination sites.

The order issued by the Directorate of Family Welfare on Thursday said, all slots, booked online or availed through walk-in shall be reserved.

"Vaccination of 18-44 cohort began on May 1, 2021 and with the completion of the 84-day interval for second dose of Covishield, many of them would now become eligible for the second dose in coming weeks," reads the order.

"In view of limited supply of vaccine, all slots, both for online booking and walk-in vaccination in the sessions being planned in government CVCs administering Covishield vaccine will be reserved for a second dose of Covishield with immediate effect till July 31," it said.

Both Covishield and Covaxin vaccines are administered at Covid vaccination centres (CVCs) run by the city government.

The bulletin said Delhi had less than a day's stock of vaccine doses left on Wednesday morning after administering over 71,000 doses on Tuesday.

The national capital had received 85,810 doses of Covishield on Tuesday, taking the total number of doses available in Delhi to 1,08,300

Delhi on Thursday reported 49 new Covid cases and one more death from the virus, taking the active case tally here to 585.

The daily positivity rate on Thursday was recorded at 0.08 per cent with 58,502 tests conducted in the last 24 hours.

According to the CoWIN portal, maintained by the Central government, Delhi had administered around 48,000 doses of the vaccine until around 10:30 pm on Thursday

Significantly, the July data for vaccination in Delhi showed that average daily vaccinations were around 75,000 doses.

Delhi had been reeling under a brutal second wave of the pandemic that is sweeping the country, claiming a massive number of lives daily, with the recent oxygen supply shortage issue at various hospitals, adding to the woes.

Since April 19, both daily cases and single-day deaths count had been spiralling up, with over 28,000 cases and 277 deaths recorded on April 20; rising to 306 fatalities on April 22.

On May 3, the city registered a record 448 deaths, as per the official data.

However, the number of cases have shown a downward trend and the positivity rate too has been shrinking in the last several days.

The number of deaths per day has also been showing a decline in the last couple of days.