Can vaccinate entire Delhi in three months if criteria relaxed: Kejriwal

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said that the people of the national capital could be vaccinated in three months if the Centre relaxes some parameters of vaccination.

“There is a surge in Covid-19 cases in the national capital. There was a time when the daily Covid-19 cases were retrained to 100-125. Yesterday Delhi recorded more than 500 cases,” Kejriwal told ANI. Appealing to people to get themselves vaccinated, the Delhi CM said, “I appeal to everyone, who is eligible, to get themselves vaccinated. 30,000-40,000 vaccines are being administered per day, as of now. We will increase this to 1.25 lakh vaccines per day. In the next few days, we are increasing our capacity.”

“Vaccination is being done in about 500 centres in Delhi, it will be doubled to 1000. Especially in government centres, vaccination is being done from 9 am to 5 pm. Now the hours are being increased from 9 am to 9 pm so that more and more people can be vaccinated,” he said.

Kejriwal further said, “I appeal to Centre that their current guidelines for vaccination centres is very stringent. We now have two months of experience in vaccination. So, we are writing to the Centre to relax some parameters so that vaccination can be done at more centres. We will take all precautions.”

“Instead of making a list as to who all are eligible for vaccination, we should make a list as to who all are ineligible. Vaccination must be permitted for everyone else. There should be a walk-in,” he said.

“If government relax parameters of vaccination, the entire Delhi can be vaccinated in three months,” he added.

In another event on Thursday, CM Kejriwal said that it is the priority of the government to ensure good health of the people of Delhi and the Health Information Management System (HIMS) seeks to target the healthcare delivery process.

The Delhi CM reviewed the HIMS project on Thursday along with Health and Family Welfare Minister Satyendar Jain and other health department officials. The meeting was convened to discuss the progress of the HIMS project, along with other projects such as issuing e-health cards and initiating a health helpline. ‘

The Delhi CM said, “We should expedite the process of floating tenders and proposals, along with expediting the process of approvals. Ensuring the good health of the people is our priority. The project should be completed within its due timeline.”

All the patient care services, hospital administration, budgeting and planning, supply chain management, and backend services and processes will be brought under the HIMS. The entire system will be on the cloud and digitised. This will enable the citizens to avail themselves information on one platform, which will help them in emergency cases.

With this, Delhi will become the only state to have a cloud-based health management system. This facility will also be extended to private hospitals in the future.

Delhi on Thursday witnessed 607 new Covid-19 cases, the highest in nearly 2.5 months. The city also reported one fatality, 384 recoveries.