The Assam government has set January 15 as the deadline to complete Covid-19 vaccination with both doses for all the estimated 2.1 crore eligible population in the state, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.Talking to media persons, he said that first dose to all the people above 18 years of age would be done by November 20.Assam has around 2.1 crore eligible population for the vaccines, said Sarma, who was the Health and Family Welfare Minister in the previous government headed by Sarbananda Sonowal.Assam's current estimated total population, according to government records is over 3.5 crore.According to the latest report of the Health Department, as on Friday night, 2,79,96,544 people were administered one dose, with 78,96,412 of them administered both doses.
The Chief Minister said that around 95 per cent of the people above 18 years in Assam have received their first dose and vaccination of the remaining 10 lakh would be completed by November 20.He said that these 10 lakh are a "vaccine resistant" population, many of them in three hill districts, who are either not keen to take the jab, or are aged citizens unwilling to go to the vaccination centres."The government has planned through an all out door-to-door vaccination drive, and these 10 lakh people would be vaccinated. The exercise would require a great deal of motivating and convincing the people," Sarma said.He said that he was very optimistic that once all the eligible people of the state are vaccinated, the third wave of the pandemic would not have much impact.