India / PM Modi to address the nation at 10 am today

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 10am on Friday, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has announced in a tweet. “PM @narendramodi will address the nation at 10am today,” the PMO informed on its official Twitter handle.

PM Modi's address to the nation comes a day after India's vaccination coverage against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) crossed the 1 billion or 100 crore mark. On the occasion, he visited Delhi's Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital to interact with doctors and health care workers there.

The Prime Minister may also, once again, stress on the need to not let one's guard down during the ongoing festive season as this could lead to a third wave of the viral illness. Over the last few days, the country has seen less than 20,000 daily Covid-19 cases.

The nationwide vaccination drive against the coronavirus disease began on January 16 with two vaccines--Covaxin and Covishield. Since then, four other jabs have been given emergency use authorisation (EUA) by the Drugs Controller General India (DCGI). Among these, two--Covaxin and ZyCoV-D--are indigenously made shots. While the former has been developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited, Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadilla has developed the latter.

Currently. only those aged 18 and above are eligible for inoculation against Covid-19. The Centre aims to vaccinate the entire 944 million-strong adult population by the year-end.