China s central health officials have asked their provincial counterparts to halt mandatory vaccination orders as some cities were reportedly found to adopt compulsory measures to meet the country s goal of vaccinating 560 million people by June.
China is taking an approach of getting the people who need it vaccinated and pushing forward vaccination in stages, and as of Saturday, the country had administered 164.47 million jabs, making it the second-fastest country in the world in terms of mass vaccination, Wu Liangyou, deputy head of the National Health Commission s (NHC) disease control bureau told media on Sunday, the state-run Global Times reported. NHC spokesperson Mi Feng said, Some places adopted inappropriate measures, including a one-size-fits-all or compulsory for all approach, which needs to be corrected.
Read more about Tokyo adopts tougher coronavirus rules, starts vaccinating elders on Business Standard. Tokyo adopted tougher measures against the coronavirus Monday as it struggles to curb the rapid spread of a more contagious variant
Amid a surge in coronavirus cases in the country, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow emergency use of all the vaccine candidates having required clearances. In a letter to the prime minister after her meeting with chief ministers of Congress-ruled states, she also sought expansion of categories of people eligible for vaccination on the basis of need and exposure rather than age. While it will be necessary on one hand to substantially ramp up our domestic production capacity, it will also be prudent to allow emergency use authorisation of all the vaccine candidates that have the required clearances, without any further delay, she told the prime minister in her letter.
The fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Delhi is causing high-grade fever, spreading faster and affecting the younger population, especially those in the age group of 30 to 50, more, according to experts. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said the fourth wave is more dangerous than the previous ones and according to data available with him, 65 per cent of patients infected this time are below 45 years. The sudden spike in COVID-19 cases in Delhi over the last few days and across the country has baffled medical experts. Some doctors said the reason behind a large number of people contracting the infection this year vis-a-vis last year could be that the virus has mutated and the current strain is more infectious.