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When the “precautionary” dose of the coronavirus vaccine begins to be administered on January 10, the first recipients will likely be those older than 60 years with associated comorbidities, and those who got their second dose nine months previously, media has learnt.

The decision to keep the interval between the second and third doses at nine months has been based on the findings of five scientific studies carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), Faridabad, top government sources who were part of the deliberations, told media.

The nine-month interval would mean the initial doses of the precautionary vaccine will be received by those who had got the second shots in the primary vaccination schedule by April 10 this year — that is, mainly the healthcare and frontline workers who were the first to be inoculated from January 16 onward.

New Delhi: After he announced his retirement from all forms of cricket on Friday, former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh set tongues wagging when he said he was not verse to joining politics but had not made a final decision yet. He further said he wanted to serve Punjab, but did not know if it would be through politics or “something else".

Harbhajan said, “I know politicians from every party. I’ll make an announcement beforehand if I’ll join any party. Will serve Punjab, maybe via politics or something else, no decision has been taken yet." His statement comes ahead of the Punjab assembly elections early next year. Recently, before announcing his retirement, he had set the rumour mill spinning after he posed for a picture with Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, who captioned the pic, “Picture loaded with possibilities …. With Bhajji the shining star".

At least nine among 10 persons getting infected by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19 are fully vaccinated, an analysis of 183 Omicron cases in India by the Centre showed.

Sharing the results of the analysis Friday, the Centre emphasised that “vaccine alone is not sufficient to contain the pandemic” and reminded that the use of masks and surveillance is key to breaking the chain of transmission.

The analysis, released by Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, showed 27 per cent of the cases did not have a history of foreign travel — indicating the presence of Omicron in the community.

The Allahabad high court on Thursday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Election Commission (EC) to ban political rallies and if possible, even consider deferring assembly elections for one or two months in view of the rising cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

“The state elections are near and political parties are organising rallies in which people in large numbers are gathering and it is not possible to follow Covid protocol in such rallies. If not stopped, results will be worse than the second wave,” a single bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav said.

The judge requested EC to direct political parties to campaign through Doordarshan and the print media instead of organising rallies, and if possible, the elections expected to be held in February next year could be postponed by a couple of months because only if there is life, then the election rallies and meetings can take place, and the right to life has also been given under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

With Omicron cases growing rapidly in the country, PM Narendra Modi has called for a high level meeting on Thursday to review Covid-19 situation.

A total of 213 cases infected with Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 were detected through genome sequencing of samples till Wednesday morning, according to health ministry data.

Delhi recorded maximum 57 cases, followed closely by Maharashtra at 54. Telangana (24), Karnataka (19), Rajasthan (18), Kerala (15) and Gujarat (14) have also recorded large number of samples infected with Omicron. Overall, 15 states have reported Omicron cases.

Of the 213 cases, 90 have recovered so far.