COVID-19 vaccination to be done on all days of April, including gazetted holidays

Representational Image (Reuters)

New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday (April 1, 2021) informed that COVID-19 vaccination will now be done on all days of April, including gazetted holidays at all public and private hospitals. 

The Centre has also written to all states and UTs and asked them to make necessary arrangements to provide COVID-19 vaccination in these CVCs on all days of the month including gazetted holidays during April 2021.

The decision was taken after detailed deliberations with the states/UTs to optimally utilize all COVID Vaccination Centres across the public and private sectors to ensure a rapid increase in the pace and coverage of COVID vaccination. 

The announcement comes on a day when people above 45 years of age have been allowed to take the COVID-19 vaccine jabs. 

Meanwhile, more than 6.5 crore vaccine doses have been administered through 10,86,241 sessions, as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's provisional report till 7 am on Thursday. 

India's COVID-19 caseload, on the other hand, has also been witnessing a huge surge in the past few days. On Thursday, the country's COVID-19 count was increased by 72,330 to 1,22,21,665, the biggest single-day spike since October 2020. 

Eight states, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh continue to show a steep rise in the COVID daily new cases. 84.61% of the new cases are reported from these 8 states.

Maharashtra reported the highest daily new cases at 39,544, followed by Chhattisgarh (4,563) and Karnataka (4,225).