A vaccine effectiveness of 99.3% has been seen among people who have been fully inoculated against the coronavirus disease till January 2, the Centre told the Lok Sabha on Friday.
In reply to a question on the percentage of fatalities among vaccinated and unvaccinated people, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that India’s Covid-19 vaccine tracker shows vaccine effectiveness against death, which is the ability of vaccines to reduce fatalities.
Mandaviya said the tracker was developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research by merging three database – CoWIN, National Covid-19 Testing database and Covid-19 India portal.
“The tracker is updated periodically and displays the effectiveness of partial and full vaccination against Covid-19,” he said, adding that data is analysed and presented based to the reports submitted by state governments.
The minister also said that 13,551 cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in India till January 31 from 29 states and Union Territories.
The highest number of Omicron cases were found in Maharashtra with 3,130 infections, followed by Rajasthan with 1,813, West Bengal with 1,693, Karnataka with 1,115 and Delhi with 1,093.
On the question if the government was planning to impose a countrywide lockdown, Mandaviya said that the Centre has issued guidelines to states and Union Territories for imposing restrictions or allowing relaxation on the basis of testing confirmation rates of Covid-19 and hospital bed occupancy.
“Government of India is supporting states in their endeavour to manage Covid-19 since the beginning of pandemic,” the minister said, adding that various expert committees under the Indian Council of Medical Research, Directorate General of Health Services and other ministries and departments are keeping a close watch on the Covid-19 situation across the country and globally.
On Friday, India had 1,49,394 new coronavirus cases, taking the infection tally to 4,19,52,712 since the pandemic broke out in January 2020. The number of cases is 13.36% lower than Thursday’s count of 1,72,433 infections.
The country also registered 1,072 fatalities due to Covid-19, taking the overall countrywide toll to 5,00,055. This included 441 backlog deaths that Kerala added to its tally of fatalities.
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