NEW DELHI: Delhi’s health minister Satyendar Jain on Tuesday said that the capital could administer three to four lakh vaccine doses against Covid-19 a day but was forced to repeatedly shut down vaccination centres as enough vaccines were not being supplied to the state.
“There is a shortage of vaccines in Delhi. We received a small stock of 1.5 lakh of Covishield on Monday night, which shall last till Tuesday. This in effect will again cause the centres to shut after the stock gets finished on Tuesday,” Jain said.
“We have the capability to administer three to four lakh vaccine doses a day,” Jain said, adding that despite a robust infrastructure, centres have to shut down because Delhi has only 1.68 lakh vaccines, which would not last beyond Tuesday or first half of Wednesday.
“We are fully prepared to vaccinate people, but there’s a lack of vaccines which halts our otherwise smooth going vaccination programme,” Jain said. “We can’t function like Haryana and slowly vaccinate people to hoard on stocks. We are vaccinating the maximum number of people as and when we are receiving the vaccines.”
Jain said the number of Covid-19 positive cases was now the lowest in 15 months, the number of active cases below 700 and the positivity rate below 1%. “Covid cases have come down sharply in Delhi but I still urge people to take complete precautions and wear masks at all times. I believe we can prevent the third wave if people abide by Covid norms. We saw a similar situation back in January-February when people thought that the cases had come down sharply,” he said.
Jain said that people shouldn’t assume that cases had gone down and wouldn’t rise again. “As long as Covid-19 cases exist in the public, the virus can spread around. The only prevention from this situation is wearing a mask. Always wear a mask while stepping out of the house,” said the health minister.
Jain said during the peak of Covid-19 cases, at least 25% of hospital beds in Delhi were occupied by those from outside Delhi and everyone received free treatment. “Even today, when we are seeing a handful of admissions, 25-30% of them belong to areas outside of Delhi. We all know there was a shortage of oxygen in Delhi. There was a clear shortage. We needed oxygen, so we asked for it. If we need it again, we will ask for it again,” he said.
