In a press conference today, May 8, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the government can vaccinate people of Delhi in three months if it gets adequate vaccine doses.

“To complete vaccination within three months, we need to vaccinate three lakh [300,000] people every day. As of today, we are administering vaccines to one lakh [100,000] people in a day,” he said in the virtual conference. 

The chief minister also informed that there are 15 million people above 18 years of age in Delhi. Therefore, the government needs 30 million doses to administer vaccines to them. “Out of this, Delhi Govt has got only 40 lakh [four million] doses so far. We need 2.6 crores [26 million] more doses,” said Kejriwal.

The chief minister said if the Delhi government is given 80-85 lakh [8-8.5 million] doses of COVID-19 vaccine per month, it can complete vaccination within three months.

“Many people from Faridabad, Sonipat, Gurgaon [Gurugram], Ghaziabad, Noida, are also coming to Delhi for vaccination. They like the facilities in Delhi. But the biggest problem we face is vaccine shortage. We have vaccine doses for only five to six days with us,” said the chief minister.

Kejriwal also urged the central government to ensure adequate availability of vaccines to Delhi.

As per the latest data released by the Delhi government, 114,657 beneficiaries were vaccinated yesterday, May 7. Over 3.6 million beneficiaries have been cumulatively vaccinated so far in the national capital.

Meanwhile, Delhi recorded 19,832 new cases in the last 24 hours.; 341 fatalities due to COVID were reported.