New Delhi, Dec 25: Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an address to the nation on Saturday announced that India will start vaccinating children between the ages of 15 to 18 from January 3 next year, while healthcare and frontline workers will be provided with “precautionary doses” from January 10, 2022.
Also, people above 60 years of age who have co-morbidities will have the option to take a booster dose, on a doctor’s recommendation, from January 10.
The Prime Minister said it’s time to be careful as the highly contagious Omicron variant is spreading rapidly across the world and cases are rising. PM Modi appealed to the people not to panic and “use masks and wash hands regularly”.
The PM urged the citizens to not spread rumours and fake news and cautioned everyone to stay alert. “We have run the largest vaccination drive and we want to work to make it better. We have to strengthen the country against Covid,” he said.
“Today, more than 61 per cent of India’s adult population has received both doses of the vaccine. Similarly, about 90 percent of the adult population has been given a single dose of the vaccine,” he said, hailing India’s vaccination drive.
He assured the citizens that all possible preparations are in order to tackle increasing infections and listed the number of hospital beds, oxygen beds available, and vaccination progress.
“India has 18 lakh isolation beds, 5 lakh oxygen supported beds, 1.40 lakh ICU beds, 90,000 pediatric ICU & non-ICU beds. We have more than 3,000 working PSA oxygen plants, 4 lakh oxygen cylinders have been distributed throughout the nation,” he said.
