HYDERABAD: Within 72 hours of the detection of the BF.7 Omicron variant in India, there has been a 400% jump in precautionary jabs across Telangana and almost eight-fold rise in Odisha.
In Telangana, on December 21, a day before the sub-variant surfaced in India, only 646 beneficiaries had taken the booster shots. But this figure spiralled to 3,380 within three days (December 24) as people were jolted by the fear of another Covid wave that’s already taking a debilitating toll on neighbouring China.
On December 22, the number of citizens availing the precautionary dose climbed to 1,631. And the trend continued on the 23rd, with the figure rising to 2,267 and touching an unprecedented 3,380 doses on Saturday. Even on Christmas Day, more than 1,500 beneficiaries took the jab. “In my family, none of us took precautionary doses because we thought cases were a trickle, but after seeing what was happening in China and how the virus entered our country, we rushed to take the boosters,” Enugu Ramchandra Reddy, a Hyderabad-based techie, said.
Except on November 23, when the number was close to 2,913, daily precaution doses in Telangana never hovered around the 3,000 mark in the last few months. Telangana health minister T Harish Rao has asked the Centre to supply more precautionary doses.
In Odisha, while five days ago, the empanelled 12 private hospitals together would see 100 people taking the third jab daily, now around 800 people are taking the precaution dose every day, according to the state health department.
(With inputs from Riyan.Ramanath in Bhubaneswar)
In Telangana, on December 21, a day before the sub-variant surfaced in India, only 646 beneficiaries had taken the booster shots. But this figure spiralled to 3,380 within three days (December 24) as people were jolted by the fear of another Covid wave that’s already taking a debilitating toll on neighbouring China.
On December 22, the number of citizens availing the precautionary dose climbed to 1,631. And the trend continued on the 23rd, with the figure rising to 2,267 and touching an unprecedented 3,380 doses on Saturday. Even on Christmas Day, more than 1,500 beneficiaries took the jab. “In my family, none of us took precautionary doses because we thought cases were a trickle, but after seeing what was happening in China and how the virus entered our country, we rushed to take the boosters,” Enugu Ramchandra Reddy, a Hyderabad-based techie, said.
Except on November 23, when the number was close to 2,913, daily precaution doses in Telangana never hovered around the 3,000 mark in the last few months. Telangana health minister T Harish Rao has asked the Centre to supply more precautionary doses.
In Odisha, while five days ago, the empanelled 12 private hospitals together would see 100 people taking the third jab daily, now around 800 people are taking the precaution dose every day, according to the state health department.
(With inputs from Riyan.Ramanath in Bhubaneswar)
