COVID-19 vaccine: 31,700 health workers to be inoculated today, says UP Minister

Lucknow, Jan 16: Uttar Pradesh Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh has said that as many as 31,700 health workers would be administered COVID-19 vaccines today (January 16) as the government begins its inoculation drive.

According to reports, the shots will be administered at as many as 311 centres across the state's 75 districts on the first day. The government has set up 1,500 such centres to vaccinate around nine lakh health workers in the first phase.

Meanwhile, Health officials said the state had received about 10.75 lakh vaccine doses. According to Jai Pratap Singh, 10.55 lakh of those are "Covishield" doses, while the rest are "Covaxin".

According to the guidelines, all government and non-government health workers will be vaccinated first. While nine lakh health workers are scheduled to receive the shots in the first three days, those who do not get it for any reason will be vaccinated on the fourth day.

"The vaccination for Covid-19 is starting from Saturday and on day one the vaccination will take place at 311 centres across all 75 districts in the state. The number will increase in the coming days. We have already received around 10.75 lakh doses of the vaccines and have been sent to all the districts. Our preparations, including the training of human resources, are complete. The vaccination on Saturday will start at 9 am and will go on till 5 pm as per all the protocols," said Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad.

"The second dose will be after 28 days, and only after around two weeks from the second dose the body will develop immunity. This is why we cannot be relaxed yet and need to keep following the COVID appropriate behaviour," he added.