With India ramping up the process of COVID-19 vaccination, Centre has said that the government has removed the time constraint on getting vaccinated and people can get the jab 24x7 at their convenience.
"The government has removed time constraint to increase the speed of vaccination. People can get vaccinated 24x7 at their convenience. Prime Minister Narendra Modi understands the value of both time and health of citizens," Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan tweeted.
The Union Health Minister was replying to a report by Dainik Bhaskar that stated private hospitals can choose any time slot to vaccinate people.
Earlier, on Tuesday Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the timeline of vaccinating between 9 am to 5 pm has been done away with.
"If the hospital has the capacity, the system permits them to do vaccination even after 5 pm in consultation with state governments. This has been briefed both to the state government as well as private and government hospitals," Bhushan said.
Over 50 lakh people have registered themselves on the Co-WIN portal, without any system glitch, since the window opened Monday morning, the Centre said, adding that nearly 5 lakh beneficiaries above 60 or those aged 45-60 with comorbidities have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine till Tuesday evening.
The Centre on Tuesday permitted all private hospitals to give COVID-19 vaccine if they adhere to the laid down norms and also asked the states and union territories to utilise the optimum capacity of private medical facilities empanelled under three categories.
The states and Union territories were also urged not to store, reserve, conserve or create a buffer stock of the COVID-19 vaccines, the Union Health ministry said in a statement, a day after the start of the second phase of India's inoculation drive in which the coverage has been expanded to include everyone above 60 and those over 45 with specified co-morbidities.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI)
