With cases rising in Punjab in the second wave of Covid, Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Saturday ordered the vaccination of all persons above 45 years of age within this month. She directed the Administrative Secretary in-charge of each district to oversee the planning and response system.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review the Covid vaccination and management in the state here, the Chief Secretary directed all deputy commissioners, police commissioners and district police chiefs to focus on reducing the mortality rate and make efforts to increase the contact tracing, testing as well as to enhance the vaccination drive exponentially to take Punjab out of the present critical situation.
Mahajan stressed that the Covid norms should be strictly enforced in order to contain the number of cases, which increased exponentially in the past week in Punjab. She expressed concern on the reports that the majority of people were still not wearing masks at social, political and religious gatherings, which could turn the Covid situation more disastrous in the state.
Taking stock of the present situation with the DCs, CPs, SSPs and civil surgeons, the Chief Secretary was informed that approximately 10 lakh people have been inoculated so far and the state plan was to vaccinate 32 lakh citizens in the coming two weeks. She instructed the state machinery to increase the testing capacity to 60,000 tests per day so that the situation of Covid could be controlled timely.
Mahajan directed the district administrations to collect the samples of the Covid patients at the earliest and provide the results as soon as possible so that the positive patients should make themselves quarantined immediately.
The Chief Secretary asked the district administrations to rope in non-governmental organizations and other civil society groups for motivating the people to take the jab without any hesitancy. She directed the administrations to send the samples thrice a day to the laboratories to enhance the Covid testing and results of the tests should be made available swiftly to the patients.
Presenting the state strategy on Covid management, testing, tracing and vaccination, the Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Hussan Lal, said the doctors were directed to upload the sample and vaccination data on Covid portal on real time basis and the messages should be sent to the beneficiaries so that they could reach the vaccination sites in time.
He unveiled the six pillars to win the battle against Covid, which included containment and surveillance, testing, treatment, vaccination, citizen communication and information management. He disclosed that around 80 per cent of Covid cases in Punjab in this second wave have been found infected with UK strain
DGP Dinkar Gupta, informed that about 1.5 lakh RT-PCR tests have been done through the police personnel so far. Besides, two battalions of Punjab Police personnel have been completely inoculated and 74 per cent of the police personnel have already received the jab. He advised the people to follow the Covid norms properly and asked them not to gather for parties in hotels and restaurants till the situation normalises.
Top officials of the State Government were present in the meeting.
2,705 NEW CASES, 49 DEATHS IN PUNJAB
Punjab on Saturday reported 49 more fatalities due to Covid-19 which pushed the death toll to 7032, while 2705 new cases took the tally to 2,48,454 in the State, according to a medical bulletin issued. The number of active cases rose to 25,314 on Saturday. The fresh cases included 469 in Jalandhar, 360 in Mohali, 382 in Ludhiana, 263 in Amritsar, 191 in Hoshiarpur and 141 in Patiala, the bulletin said.
2,781 coronavirus patients were discharged after recovery and this took the number of cured persons to 2,16,108. There are 33 critical patients who are on ventilator support while 313 are on oxygen support, the bulletin said. Seven deaths were reported from Amritsar, six from Hoshiarpur, five Luidhana and four each from Ropar and Jalandhar. A total of 60,43,312 samples have been collected for testing so far in the State, the bulletin said.