V-Day: Thousands get first jabs as India rolls out Covid-19 inoculation programme
PTI
New Delhi |
Updated on
January 16, 2021
Covishield and Covaxin vaccines shots being administered at medical centres Thousands of healthcare and sanitary workers at the frontline of India’s Covid-19 battle got their first jabs on Saturday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world’s largest vaccination drive against the pandemic, showing the light at the end of a 10-month tunnel that upended millions of lives.
More than one crore cases and 1.5 lakh fatalities later, India took its first steps out of the pandemic with shots of the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines being administered at medical centres across the country to a collective sigh of relief that this could finally be the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 trauma.
Around 1,800 health workers have been selected for inoculation on Saturday, the officials said. Today is a big day for us. It seems we are slowly coming out of the pandemic, which has claimed so many lives. We were in a state of depression for the last one year. From today, we will again relive our lives, Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim said.
Hakim said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will hold a virtual meeting with officials at 1 pm to monitor the vaccination process.
Around 90,000 frontline health workers at government and private hospitals have been enrolled for the first phase in West Bengal.