Delhi still facing shortage of Covid-19 vaccine, need 3 crore doses: CM Kejriwal

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday there is still a shortage of vaccine doses against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and the national capital needs three crore doses to inoculate all eligible beneficiaries within three months. He urged the Centre to provide the requisite number of doses.

Addressing a press briefing, Kejriwal said, "How many vaccine doses do we need to inoculate all eligible beneficiaries in three months? If I give you an estimate, Delhi's population is 2 crore. Of this, 1 crore people are in the age group of 18 and 45; 50 lakh below the age of 18 and the rest 50 lakh above the age of 45. Hence, there are almost 1.5 crore people above the age of 18. These 1.5 crore people have to be administered two vaccine doses. Hence, 3 crore doses are needed of which the Delhi government has received 40 lakh doses. We need 2.6 crore more doses and around 80-85 lakh doses are needed per month."

Kejriwal expressed confidence if the Delhi government gets 80-85 lakh doses per month, the vaccination process can be completed within the set target of three months. "To complete vaccination within three months, we need to vaccinate 3 lakh people every day. Currently, we are inoculating 1 lakh people in a day. I request the Centre ensure adequate availability of vaccines to Delhi." he added.

The chief minister pointed out the current requirement of doses can also go higher as beneficiaries from the NCR region are also coming to Delhi to get inoculated.

A day earlier, Kejriwal chaired a high-level meeting on the overall Covid-19 situation in the national capital where he directed officials that all eligible beneficiaries should be vaccinated within three months. District magistrates have been ordered by the chief minister to pay surprise visits to vaccination centres and relief camps to review the preparations.

Delhi has so far vaccinated 3,666,694 beneficiaries till now of which 114,657 were administered doses in the last 24 hours.

During Friday's meeting, Kejriwal also said that oxygen supply has been improved and urged officials that no infected patient in Delhi should suffer from a shortage of the life-saving gas.

"Now that Delhi has received oxygen, no one in Delhi should suffer because of shortage of oxygen. All the hospitals in Delhi should increase their beds and every DM should arrange new oxygen beds in their districts so that no deaths happen due to lack of oxygen in Delhi," Kejriwal said adding that the hampering of oxygen distribution has to be rectified so that there is no disruption.

Since last month, several critical patients of the Covid-19 disease lost their lives as hospitals across Delhi were unable to procure oxygen supplies on time or were only able to procure limited supplies which got over very quickly.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Delhi government has recently faced criticism for not ensuring adequate availability of oxygen to hospitals and other medical facilities.