Top 10 Covid updates: Centre to provide vaccines for all adults to states as India changes policy

Here are the updates from Monday:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Centre will take over the states’ quota procurement of coronavirus vaccines. The new policy, which will be put in place over the next two weeks, essentially means that the Centre will now procure 75% of the vaccines manufactured and provide them to states to inoculate all adults. Private hospitals will continue to procure 25% of the jabs.India registered 1,00,636 new Covid-19 cases, pushing the infection tally in the country to 2,89,09,975 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. This is the lowest number of new cases in 61 days, reports said. With 2,427 deaths, the toll climbed to 3,49,186.The health ministry said that students and professionals going abroad for their education and jobs, and those part of the country’s Tokyo Olympics contingent will have to get their vaccination certificates linked to passports. The ministry also relaxed the gap for the second dose of Covishield to 28 days for these beneficiaries.A study on vaccinations done on healthcare workers in India has shown that two doses of the Covishield vaccine have produced more antibodies than those of the Covaxin shot. The study is yet to be peer reviewed but was shared on medRxiv, an online portal for unpublished reports…

Read more