Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said the city administration is fully prepared to roll out the Covid-19 vaccination drive from Saturday, starting with 81 vaccination centres where 8,100 healthcare workers will be given the first batch of shots.
Addressing a digital press conference, Kejriwal said Delhi will conduct the inoculation drive four days a week – Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. The remaining three days have been dedicated for the usual vaccines.
“This morning, I held a meeting with all concerned departments and officials to review the arrangements. The Delhi government is fully prepared to roll out the Covid-19 vaccination drive from January 16,” he said.
Kejriwal said the number of vaccination centres will gradually be increased to 175 and then 1,000 after a few weeks.
“Every day, 100 people will be vaccinated. So, nearly 8,100 people will be vaccinated every day from day one. As of now, the Central government has given us a total of 274,000 vaccines which will be sufficient to vaccinate 120,000 healthcare workers. A total of 240,000 healthcare workers have registered with us as of now,” he said.
The chief minister explained that of the 274,000 vaccines, each healthcare workers will get two shots. Also, 10% of the 274,000 vaccines are to be kept for exigencies such as breakage.
“We hope that we will soon get more vaccines so that the remaining health workers are also vaccinated in time. In the past year, people have seen difficult times because of the pandemic. I hope with these vaccines, the world gets rid of Covid-19,” he said.