Bihar govt allows walk-in vaccination for 18-44 age group; big boost for inoculation drive

In a big boost to the inoculation drive, the Bihar government has allowed people in the 18-44 age group to get themselves vaccinated at a centre without any prior appointment. This comes after the Centre formally enabled the on-site registration feature on the CoWIN app, Writing on Twitter, ex-Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi stressed that this will help crores of people including labourers. He added, "The pace of vaccination in our state, which is home to the largest number of youth, will increase". At present, Bihar (14,83,081) has vaccinated the most number of people in the 18-44 category followed by Rajasthan (14,57,619) and Uttar Pradesh (13,60,960). 

States empowered to take a call

The Centre based its new decision on the fact that some doses may be left unutilized in case the online appointee beneficiaries do not turn up on the day of vaccination resulting in vaccine wastage. Moreover, it also considered the proposition that people requiring facilitated cohort’s facility and those without access to the internet or smartphones or mobile phones may have limited access for vaccination. However, the Centre made it clear that the state government will have the power to decide on the opening of the on-site registrations depending on the local context.

Meanwhile, the private COVID vaccination centres shall have to publish their vaccination schedules exclusively with slots for online appointments. While fully reserved sessions can be organised for providing services to the beneficiaries belonging to the facilitated cohorts, the Centre advised the states to exercise abundant caution while opening up on-site registration to avoid overcrowding. So far, 1,28,74,546 doses have been administered to the aforesaid category in India. 

COVID-19 vaccination in India

A total of 15,43,90,386 persons have been inoculated in India whereas 4,20,79,390 of them have received the second dose of the vaccine too. The Union government has asserted that over 216 crore doses of vaccines will be manufactured in India between August and December. This includes COVISHIELD (75 crore doses), COVAXIN (55 crore doses), Bio E Sub Vaccine (30 crore doses), Zydus Cadila DNA vaccine (5 crore doses), SII-Novavax (20 crore doses), BB Nasal Vaccine (10 crore doses), Genova mRNA vaccine (6 crore doses) and Sputnik V (15.6 crore doses).