New Delhi: The Union Government is going to launch Covid- 19 vaccination drive starts from January 16^th, said the Government on Saturday evening. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a twitter message said, this is a landmark step forward in fighting Covid- 19.
Minutes after the announcement, Modi in his tweet “On 16th January, India takes a landmark step forward in fighting COVID-19. Starting that day, India’s nationwide vaccination drive begins. Priority will be given to our brave doctors, healthcare workers, and frontline workers including safai karamcharis”.

           He convened a high level meeting with senior officials to review the Covid situation in the country and finalize vaccine roll-out details. The Union Health Minister Dr. Harshavardhan said last week that priority will be given to around one crore healthcare workers and two crore frontline staff, like doctors, community health workers and police, who are directly involved in fighting the pandemic.

The vaccine will be free of cost for this group. The next group will be people over 50, followed by those under 50 but with co-morbidities. Around 30 crore people will be vaccinated in the first phase.
The Government said on Tuesday that its CoWIN app (short for Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network) and ecosystem would be used to manage the massive vaccination drive. The CoWIN digital platform will provide real-time information of vaccine stocks and storage temperatures, as well as provide individualized tracking of vaccine beneficiaries. Over 79 lakh beneficiaries have already been registered on the platform, the Government has said. The app has yet to be launched but will use Aadhaar numbers to authenticate vaccine beneficiaries and send text messages in at least 12 languages with details of vaccination date and time.
The Government has already held three nationwide dry runs to proof the vaccine delivery system; the third was on Friday, with 4,895 sites across 615 districts in 33 states and union territories covered. On Sunday the Government approved two vaccines for emergency use Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Covishield, which was developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and is being manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India.