The second wave of the COVID-19, that has hit Punjab hard reporting a record number of deaths, has affected people of the 21-40 years age group the most. As per the latest statistics, from January to April 2021, the population between 21 and 40 years has been affected higher than in other age groups.
Besides, the state’s urban areas, with industry or with high population density districts, like Ludhiana, Amritsar, SAS Nagar (Mohali), and Bathinda, reported more numbers of COVID-19 cases than the rural area. On the other hand, the rural areas in small districts have high numbers of COVID cases than in urban areas, like Ropar, Mansa, and Muktsar.
Sharing the details, the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Thursday said that the positivity rate of the period between May17 and June12 in rural and urban areas remained almost the same which figured up to 4.4 percent.
However, the CFR (case fatality rate) remained higher in rural areas of Punjab than urban areas in the same period, he said, adding that the trend reversed after mid-May 2021 where CFR in urban areas exceeded rural areas. “Therefore, all eligible populations need to get vaccinated and focus on IEC/BCC activities as the need of the hour for reducing CFR in State,” he added.
The Minister said that the Civil Surgeons have been instructed to intensify the vaccination drive as the Punjab Government has already asked the Centre to increase the supply of vaccines to meet the set target.
“From healthcare workers, frontline workers, senior citizens, students, foreign travellers, registered labours to unregistered labours, Punjab Government is taking appropriate measures to cover every citizen in the ambit of COVID vaccination and drive has been running in full swing at rural as well as urban areas of State,” said the Minister.
He said that data available on the Government portals depicts a valuable picture of achievement made so far in COVID vaccination.
“Two types of vaccine — Covaxin and Covishield — is available for administration in public, and till now, the Government of Punjab has received a quota of 5,98,060 Covaxin doses from the Centre whereas state purchased quota for Covaxin is around 1,50,850, the utilization of Covaxin received from the Centre is around 4,90,041 and 66,032 doses are administered to public from state purchase quota. On the same pattern, 48,16,580 Covishield vaccine is provided by the Centre and 46,43,786 is utilised,” said the Minister.
Minister added that Punjab Government has procured 5,86,000 doses of Covishield from which 5,30,603 doses have been successfully administered till June 13, 2021. “COVID Vaccine is administered under different categories like healthcare workers, frontline workers, public between 18-45 and people above 45 of age, and among all categories, total 58,15,339 people have received COVID vaccine till now,” he added.
Vaccination in the age group of 18-44 years has been expanded to include students studying abroad, foreign employed persons, shop keepers, workers of the hospitality industry, delivery boys etc. The vaccination would be conducted in a campaign ward-wise and village wise.