January 14, 2021 India’s massive Covid vaccination drive will be kicked off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16, the health ministry said on Thursday. He will be interacting with some of the over 3 lakh essential workers who will receive the Covid shot on Day 1. Here is all you need to know about India’s Covid inoculation drive.

January 14, 2021 India’s massive Covid vaccination drive will be kicked off by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 16, the health ministry said on Thursday. He will be interacting with some of the over 3 lakh essential workers who will receive the Covid shot on Day 1. Here is all you need to know about India’s Covid inoculation drive.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch India’s massive Covid vaccination drive on January 16, the Union Health Ministry confirmed on Thursday.

The health ministry said, “The massive countrywide Covid-19 vaccination drive will be rolled out by Prime Minister from January 16. This would be the world’s largest immunisation exercise.”

The prime minister will also interact with some beneficiaries who will receive the Covid shot on Saturday, via videoconferencing.

HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT INDIA’S COVID VACCINATION DRIVE ON JANUARY 16:
1Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the rollout of India’s Covid-19 vaccination programme on January 16.
2He is likely to interact via video link with some healthcare workers from across the country who will be receiving the shots on the first day.
3PM Modi is also likely to launch the CoWin (Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network) App, a digital platform created for real-time monitoring of Covid-19 vaccine delivery and distribution.
4Around three lakh healthcare workers will get vaccine shots at 2,934 sites across the country on the first day of the massive nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive.
5Each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries.
6According to the guidelines issued to the shortlisted vaccination centres, healthcare workers (those registered in Co-WIN to be vaccinated) on the launch shall include not only doctors, nurses but also nursing orderlies, safai karamcharis, ambulance drivers, and would be from a mixed age group, including above 50 years.
7The full initial procurement of 1.65 crore doses of Covid-19 vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin– has been allocated to all states and UTs in proportion to their healthcare workers database. “Therefore, there is no question of discrimination against any State in the allocation of vaccination doses. This is an initial lot of supply of vaccine doses and would be continuously replenished in the weeks to come. Therefore, any apprehension being expressed on account of deficient supply is totally baseless and unfounded,” the health ministry said.
8The Union Health Ministry has advised states not to organise “unreasonable numbers of vaccination per site per day” and said that each vaccination session will cater to a maximum of 100 beneficiaries.
9The ministry also said that states and UTs have also been advised to increase the number of vaccination session sites that would be operational every day in a progressive manner as the vaccination process stabilises and moves forward.
10The cost of vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers will be borne by the central government.