First in country: Maharashtra fully vaccinates over one crore people

Maharashtra on Monday became the first State in the country to fully vaccinate more than one crore people against COVID-19.

The number of people who had been administered both doses had reached 1,00,64,308, said additional chief secretary (Health) Dr. Pradeep Vyas. Officials said 3,75,974 people had been vaccinated through 4,100 inoculation centres in the State till 4 p.m. on Monday.

“The State has set a record after more than one crore people have been administered both doses of COVID-19 vaccine and they have been given full protection against the virus,” Health Minister Rajesh Tope said, while lauding the work of frontline health workers and Health Department personnel.

Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray tweeted, “Despite tremendous natural calamities, today Maharashtra set a benchmark of being India’s first and only (as yet, and we hope for many more states soon) to have fully vaccinate 1 crore people. Congratulations to our doctors, nurses, medics and other officials for this!”

Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported a robust 11,077 recoveries against 4,877 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, causing the active cases to dip sharply to 88,729.

As many as 53 deaths pushed the State’s cumulative fatalities to 1,31,605 with the case fatality rate climbing to 2.09%.

The total cases have reached 62,69,799 while its cumulative recoveries have risen to 60,46,106, with the recovery rate standing at 96.43%.

“Of a total 4,69,95,122 laboratory samples tested thus far, 62,69,799 (with the average case positivity falling incrementally to 13.34%) have returned positive with over 1.49 lakh samples being tested in the last 24 hours,” State Surveillance Officer Dr. Pradeep Awate said.

Pune recorded more than 718 new cases, taking its total case tally to 10,83,862 while 10 deaths pushed the toll to 18,248. As per district authorities, the active cases have touched 9,800.

Mumbai reported 297 fresh cases to take its total tally to 7,34,415 while the active cases dropped to 7,186. Eight fatalities took the city’s death count to 15,845.

Flood-hit Kolhapur added 375 new cases, taking its total cases to 1,91,638. The active cases declined to 10,322. Eleven deaths saw the fatality toll go up to 5,402.