“Vaccination is the Most Important Shield against Coronavirus;” Govt
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 9: Even as the country recorded 43,263 new coronavirus infections and 338 deaths in the last 24 hours on Thursday, the central government asserting that vaccination prevented deaths, said one dose of vaccine was 96.6 per cent effective in preventing death and two Covid shots were 97.5 per cent effective.
Citing data between April and August, the government said the new data showed that most deaths in the devastating second wave of Covid in April-May were recorded among the unvaccinated.
“Vaccination is the most important shield against the virus,” said VK Paul, member (health) NITI Aayog who heads the Covid task force, said. “There are vaccines available. We request people to get their vaccination. Only after the first dose can people get the second dose. It assures that death due to Covid does not happen,” he said.
The government said breakthrough infections – or infections among the fully vaccinated – do happen, but asserted that they “do not result in mortality” and account for an extremely low level of hospitalization.
Along with Covid, other infections like dengue are also on the rise, warned Dr Paul, confirming that the fever that was causing deaths among children in Uttar Pradesh is dengue. “Mosquito-borne diseases are on the rise we need to be careful. Dengue has serious, fatal complications and there is no vaccine. We must fight against these illnesses alongside Covid,” he said.
Pointing out that more than 71 crore people have been vaccinated nationwide and the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in India crossed 72 crore, the Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said 18% of India’s adult population received both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, and 58% administered at least one dose.
A total of 4.41 lakh people have died in the pandemic so far, he confirmed. The active cases increased to 3,93,614 comprising 1.19% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.48%, he said.
Addressing a press conference, Bhushan said Kerala alone accounted for almost 68% of total cases in last week. “Overall declining trend is a little less than 50% which was there in 1st wave. We’re are still witnessing second surge, it’s not over,” he said.
He said more than 70.63 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been provided to States and UTs so far. Further, more than 96 lakh doses are in the pipeline while more than 5.58 crore balance and unutilised COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with the States and UTs to be administered.
Balram Bhargava, Head, ICMR said, “Festival season gathering and travel should be curtailed.” He added that an ‘India COVID19 vaccine tracker’ will be launched soon on the Health Ministry website.
The Mumbai Congress has sought reopening of cinema halls, multiplexes, auditoriums citing financial losses faced by these establishments. The Mumbai unit of the Congress has also urged the Maharashtra government to restart swimming pools so that professional swimmers can practise for tournaments.
Meanwhile, a study report said breastfeeding mothers vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna preventive experienced similar side effects to what have previously been reported in non-breastfeeding women, while infants exhibited no adverse events after immunization.
The research, published in the journal Breastfeeding Medicine, involved 180 breastfeeding women who received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine.
Japan said on Thursday it will extend emergency COVID-19 restrictions in Tokyo and other regions until the end of this month to curb infections and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, saying it was too early to let down its guard. Japan struggling with a fifth wave of the virus had earlier extended its long-running curbs until September 12 to cover about 80% of its population. The venue for the recent Olympics followed by Paralympic games, Tokyo and some other parts of Japan though have registered decreasing number of severe cases, the strain on the health system had not eased sufficiently to allow restrictions to be lifted, official sources said.
Parts of Australia’s New South Wales State will come out of lockdown on September 11 and the government plans to ease restrictions in Sydney once 70% of its residents aged 16 and older are fully vaccinated.
The government on September 9 outlined plans to ease restrictions in Sydney, which has been locked down since June, but it also warned that COVID-19 hospitalizations won’t plateau until next month. Coastal areas north of Sydney, the Murrumbidgee region south of the city and the Riverina to the west will be released from the statewide lockdown Saturday.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged rich countries with large supplies of coronavirus vaccines to refrain from offering booster shots through the end of the year and make the doses available for poorer countries.
