January 8, 2021: The second phase of nationwide coronavirus vaccination dry run will be conducted across 33 states and Union Territories (UTs) on Friday.

Earlier, a dry run was carried out in eight districts on December 28-29 and the first countrywide drill covering 74 districts was held on January 2.

“The lessons learnt from the earlier exercise will be made use to execute another dry run. Whatever was lacking earlier has been rectified, and will be tested in Friday’s dry run,” Union health minister Harsh Vardhan told states and UTs in a meeting on Thursday.

The process began days after India’s drug regulator gave its clearance for two Covid-19 vaccines -  Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.