COVID-19: Aaditya Thackeray, Krishna Ella bat for booster dose for healthcare workers, immunocompromised

Maharashtra is stepping up measures to prevent a spike in COVID cases. Speaking exclusively to Shereen Bhan, state cabinet minister Aaditya Thackeray said the state has written to the Centre asking to allow booster doses for healthcare workers and immuno-compromised.

Thackeray said, "The frontline workers have been fully vaccinated 8 or 9 months ago. So maybe we can allow them and immuno-compromised to have a third dose at their choice."

Krishna Ella, CMD of Bharat Biotech, said that third dose will certainly help comorbidity patients and healthcare workers.

India's omicron tally remained below 50 and new cases remained below 8,000. Active cases fell for the third straight day, down by 825 in the last 24 hours. The daily death toll stood at 202 in the 24-hour period.

On the vaccination front, India has administered 133.5 crore doses so far-- with this, about 51.7 crore people or 39.8 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated and nearly 81.8 crore people or 62.9 percent of the population has received at least one dose.