The virulent novel coronavirus infection continued to play havoc across the state with Uttar Pradesh reporting 13,681 new positive cases in the last 24 hours while 700 COVID-19 patients recovered and were discharged on Wednesday.
The number of active Covid cases in the state has now gone up to 57,355, and the overall positivity rate stood at 1.86 per cent and the recovery rate at 95.5 per cent.
A total of 90.71 per cent of the adult population has been administered the first dose of Covid vaccine and 54.90 per cent of the adult residents of the state have taken both the doses. The cumulative vaccination in the state stands at 21.82 crore doses so far.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Prasad said on Wednesday, “UP has surpassed 22 crore Covid vaccine shots and the state is followed by Maharashtra with 14.15 crore doses administered so far. In light of the emergence of the new Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus, the state government has expedited its vaccination coverage across the state. As per latest figures on CoWIN, Uttar Pradesh has administered more than 13.81 crore first doses of the Covid vaccine so far and 8.17 crore second doses of the vaccine.”
Besides, vaccination for children in the age bracket of 15-18 years also kicked off in the state with a major turnout on January 3. Over 35 lakh children have been administered the vaccine doses so far. Also, more than 1.93 lakh ‘precautionary doses’ have been administered to healthcare workers, frontline workers and senior citizens in the state within three days.
To speed up the vaccination drive for children in the state, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed the officials concerned to ensure adequate availability of vaccine doses and set a target of providing at least a single vaccine jab of the vaccine to the teenagers by January 15.
“In the wake of the emerging situation, work is being undertaken under a special strategy to expedite the vaccination campaign in rural areas with the cluster approach and the ‘har ghar dastak’ strategy,” Prasad said.