With Covid-19 vaccination turnouts in the city consistently below the government’s expectations, district teams have fanned out across the Capital in a bid to convince people aged above 60 and those over 45 with serious illness to get inoculated against the infection, which has steadily inched up in the city over the past few days.

A senior government official said the teams have also been entrusted with helping people register and book vaccine slots through the Centre’s CoWin system and arrange conveyance for them if required.

“We want to scale up the vaccination drive by increasing capacity as well as turnout. This cohort mobilisation exercise is an important step in that direction. We have to ensure that a large number of people are protected against the disease at the earliest,” said Vijay Dev, Delhi’s chief secretary.

Since January 16, when the vaccination drive was rolled out across the country starting with health care workers, 664,620 people in Delhi — roughly 3.3% of its total population — have received the first dose of the vaccine. These include 173,408 health workers, 264,282 front line workers, 196,007 people aged over 60 years and 30,923 people between ages 45-59 who have comorbidities, government records showed.

Out of 900,000 health workers and front line workers in the city, around 600,000 registered for the vaccine. Delhi has around 2.1 million individuals aged over 60, according to election data which the government has used to record vaccination estimates. There is no clear estimate of people aged between 45-59 years who have specific comorbidities as listed by the Union health ministry.

“We are using booth-level machinery to reach out door-to-door, meet eligible beneficiaries and speak to them about the benefits of the vaccine, help reduce hesitance and assist them with the registration process,” said Arun Kumar Mishra, district magistrate (East Delhi).

Delhi currently has 438 vaccine sites across 192 health care facilities. Of these, 56 are government facilities, where the vaccines are administered for free and 136 are private that charge up to ₹250 for a single dose.

“The focus of the drive is on potential beneficiaries who live in slums and low-income group colonies, where people are generally less aware about the programme. Many of them are too poor to afford conveyance or are less comfortable with technology to register themselves on CoWin. Another focus group is elderly people who have no relatives,” said Dharmendra Kumar, additional district magistrate.

Each district has between 25 and 50 teams depending on its size and population.

The government’s initiative comes amid a nationwide resurgence of infections. The seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases across India has risen by 67% from lows seen after the end of the first wave of the pandemic (from 10,988 cases a day week ending February 11, to 18,371 cases a day for week ending March 12), underlining what clearly appears to mark the start of the second wave of infections. On that parameter, Delhi has seen around 140% rise from the lows around mid-February.

On Sunday, Delhi recorded 407 new Covid-19 cases – with a test positivity rate of 0.60% -- and two more deaths. The number of new cases recorded each day has been higher than 400 for four days now. So far, government records showed, 643,696 infections have been recorded in Delhi – of which 630,493 have recovered and 10,941 individuals have died.

Dr Suneela Garg, director professor of community medicines department, Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi and member of the Lancet Covid-19 commission and vaccination taskforce for India, said: “Door-to-door drives is crucial for speeding up the vaccination drive and ensuring that more people are protected against the disease at the earliest, especially in the light of uptick in cases in some states. During visits by health officials, people should clearly share information regarding age and comorbidities. The government, on its part, should ensure that health officials engaged in the drive are briefed thoroughly about the communication modules drafted by the Union health ministry. The government should also monitor and evaluate how such drives contribute to turnout.”

(With inputs from agencies)