The vaccine is able to have an effect on the virus of COVID 19 only for a short time. Booster dose is only effective to increase immunity against the virus. This claim has been made in the report of the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) institution of America. It has been said in the study that with the passage of time the virus is becoming increasingly powerful, so precaution is necessary.
Jeffrey P Townsend and his team found in their study that over time the level of antibodies and immunity made against COVID in the body starts decreasing. Due to this there is a risk of getting infected with corona. Taking a booster dose will cause the antibodies to regenerate. Due to this the symptoms of corona will not be serious. Even if someone is infected after getting the vaccine, then the situation will not be too serious. It has been said in the report that the immunity from the vaccine starts decreasing after some time. In such a situation, it has become necessary to take a booster dose as a precaution.
Keep in mind that earlier the government had selected people above 60 years of age for the booster dose but now all people of 18 years can get it done. It is made free for all. Earlier, recently the government had also reduced the time interval for applying the booster dose. After this, people can get the vaccine only after 6 months of applying the second dose. Earlier this interval used to be 9 months. The government has recently taken all these precautionary steps to protect against COVID.
The 75-day campaign of free booster dose has started in the country from Friday. There was tremendous enthusiasm among the people on the very first day of the campaign. On the first day 13 lakh 30 thousand people took booster dose. There was a 16-fold increase in the number of people taking the booster dose on the very first day itself. Earlier till Thursday, only 78 lakh people had taken booster dose in the country. The Health Ministry said that the number of people taking booster doses in the age group of 18 to 59 years has crossed 90 lakhs. At the same time, 2.78 crore people above 60 years of age have also taken booster doses.
On the other hand, 20,044 new COVID cases were reported in India in the last 24 hours, 18,301 recoveries and 56 deaths were recorded out of the infected. Active cases are 1,40,760. West Bengal has the highest number of corona cases across the country. Active cases in the state have increased to 30,043. Here the positivity rate is 19.54%.