Vaccine at home for differently-abled, people with restricted mobility: Govt

The government Thursday announced that differently-abled people and those with restricted mobility will be given Covid vaccine doses at their homes. Addressing a press conference here, Union Health Ministry officials also said the country is still in the midst of the second wave of COVID-19 even though the number of daily new cases is declining.

However, they added, 62.73% of total infections reported last week were from Kerala alone, which is also the only state with over 1 lakh active Covid cases.

Thirty-three districts in the country are now reporting over 10 percent weekly positivity rate, while 23 are recording between 5-10 percent, the officials said.

Under Covid guidelines for the upcoming festival season, mass gatherings have to be avoided in containment zones and districts with over a 5 percent positivity rate, they said.

On the ongoing vaccination drive, they said that 66 percent of the country's adult population has been given at least one jab while 23 percent is fully vaccinated.

They also said that 63.7 percent of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered at centers in rural areas and 35.4 percent in urban areas.

A total of 68.2 lakh doses (approximately 0.95 percent) has been administered at Covid vaccination centers not tagged as rural or urban, they said.

On the UK rule of 10-day quarantine for those vaccinated in India, the ministry officials said it was a discriminatory practice.

Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said both the countries are in dialogue on the matter. ''We believe that the dispensation that is proposed to be implemented from October 4 is a discriminatory practice. Both sides are in dialogue and we believe a resolution will be found. We do reserve the right to reciprocate similarly,'' Bhushan said.