In West Bengal, over 2.6 lakh people took their Covid precaution shot on Friday.
The number of people taking vaccines — precaution and first two doses together — had averaged around 89,000 daily in the past week, figures shared by the state’s director of health services, Siddhartha Neogi, showed.
The number of vaccinations on Friday was 3,31,406. Of them, 2,66,602 took the precaution dose, Neogi said.
On Thursday, over 70,000 people in West Bengal had received their booster doses at government facilities.
“The number sharply increased on Friday because the age group (eligible for free booster) was no longer restricted to 60 and above,” said Neogi.
The Centre had on Wednesday announced that all adults would be offered free Covid booster shots at government vaccination clinics for 75 days from Friday.
Close to 10,000 people aged 18 or more got their Covid precaution dose in Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) clinics on Friday.
On Thursday, the number of people who took the shot in these clinics was a little over 4,000. Till 5.15pm on Friday, 9,474 people received their booster doses in KMC clinics, the civic body said. Of them, over 8,700 took Covishield shots and about 750 Covaxin.
“The majority of the recipients were in their mid-40s,” said Kaustav Ghosh, the medical officer in charge of a vaccination centre in Kasba.
As of Friday’s estimate, around 5.4 crore people are eligible for the booster dose in West Bengal, health department officials said.
“We have to try to administer the booster shot to as many people as possible within this period (75 days from Friday),” an KMC official in charge of Covid vaccination said.
On Thursday, over 70,000 people in West Bengal had received their booster doses at government facilities.
“The number sharply increased on Friday because the age group (eligible for free booster) was no longer restricted to 60 and above,” said Neogi, director of health services. “We expect the number to grow further from next week.”
The majority of those who turned up during the day for their booster shots were women. Many of whom said they felt it necessary to be boosted against Covid given the level of their daily exposure while handling domestic chores and addressing the needs of their children.
They said they had not taken the precaution shots earlier because those were only available in private clinics and were “expensive”.
“My daughter is a Class XI student. I have to accompany her to her tuition. Same for my sister-in-law, who accompanies her son to karate and swimming classes. We need the booster dose the most,” said Pranati Naskar, a resident of Rajdanga School Road.
She was accompanied by sister-in-law Rupa Naskar.
Vaccine camps run by the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation administered more than 3,500 booster doses during the day, an official of the civic body's health department said.
Four centres of the civic body — Matri Sadan, Salt Lake; Matri Sadan, Narayanpur; Vidyasagar Matri Sadan in Deshbandhunagar; and a health care in Jhautala — administered the precaution shots.