Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab has only five days of Covid-19 vaccine left: CM Amarinder Singh

CHANDIGARH: With Punjab left with only five days of supply (5.7 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses) at the current levels of vaccinating 85,000-90,000 persons a day, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh has urged the Centre to share the schedule for supply of vaccines with the states over the next quarter based on their confirmed supply orders. Hoping that the Centre would send fresh batches of vaccine supply soon, the chief minister said if the state was able to meet its target of 2 lakh vaccines a day, then its current supplies would last only three days. He added that he had written to the Prime Minister and the Union health minister to give confirmed supply schedules. Despite being a slow-starter in vaccination, Punjab has vaccinated more than 16 lakh persons, at an average of around 850,00-90,000 per day, he said during a video conference convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the Covid-19 situation. The meeting was attended by chief ministers of the Congress-ruled states as well as senior party leaders, including Rahul Gandhi. Captain Amarinder Singh said people in Punjab were still not coming out in large numbers for vaccination due to massive anger prevailing against the Government of India on the issue of farm laws. Since Punjab has majority population among the agriculture community, even the common man is affected by the farmers’ agitation, he said, adding, “This anger is impacting the vaccination drive.” The CM said his government was undertaking an extensive media campaign to address the misinformation regarding Covid-19 and vaccination hesitancy. Ranking 18th in the country at present in terms of cases reported, Punjab is showing around 8% positivity with an average of around 3,000 cases per day for the past 15 days, the CM apprised Sonia Gandhi. “The number of cases is slightly stable,” he pointed out, adding, “This shows that steps taken in the last three weeks are in the right direction.” Even in the graphs put up by the health ministry in Prime Minister’s review meeting on Friday, the “curve appears to be flattened over the past fortnight,” he said, disclosing that the state currently had around 27,200 active cases with recovery rate of 87.1%. The chief minister, however, said deaths were a concern for Punjab, with around 50-60 daily deaths with a little under 2% case fatality rate (CFR) in the second surge. Overall, CFR is 2.77% for all reported cases since March 2020, he added. Pointing out that on April 9, 2021, a total of 3,459 persons tested positive out of 41,347 samples tested and 56 deaths were reported, he said the high death rate had been on account of late reporting to hospitals, high co-morbidity (non-communicable diseases). Noting that high positivity is being seen in the younger population and as per reports received from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), more than 80% samples have been found to be positive for the more contagious and virulent UK variant, Amarinder shared with the Congress president various measures taken by his government to combat the spread. These, he said, included complete ban on political gatherings till April 30, imposition of night curfew across all districts from 9pm to 5am, restrictions on numbers in outdoor and indoor social gatherings and in cinema halls and malls, and closure of all educational institutions and anganwadi centres, with school exams being postponed. He said his government had to impose ban on political gatherings as opposition leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Sukhbir Badal were holding rallies in the state in violation of Covid-19 norms. Persons not wearing masks are compulsorily taken for RT-PCR testing, he said, adding that two lakh such people have so far been taken by police for testing. Further, Covid monitors have been appointed in all hotels, restaurants and marriage palaces to ensure Covid-appropriate behaviour. All health care workers, who have not been vaccinated, are being tested weekly for general safety, he revealed. Amarinder also gave details of testing and contact tracing, revealing that more than 40,000 tests were being conducted per day of which more than 90% were RT-PCR, with Punjab’s testing per million is higher than national average. Testing average is 1,350 per million (over last seven days) against all-India average of 824 per million. “Testing is being increased to 50,000 per day,” he added. “On contact tracing, we are slightly lower than desired number of 25-30. Currently we are at 13.4 contacts for every case, but we plan to increase it to 20 by within a fortnight,” said the CM. Underlining the importance of tracing and testing, he said a total of 20.8 lakh, who had been in contact with Covid-19 patients, had been identified of whom 8.36 lakh had been tested and 90,000 had tested positive. The state is ramping up tracing, he said, adding that he had asked the deputy commissioners to use available staff in all departments to increase testing. Amarinder also apprised Sonia of his communication with the Union government on Covid-19 and vaccine management, including the two letters he has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, seeking flexibility for states to devise their local vaccination strategies. He added that he had requested the Centre for inclusion of patients with liver and kidney disease below age of 45 and to focus on immunizing all adults in high-risk areas, besides covering all teachers & staff in all educational institutions and occupation-based immunization for judges & judicial officers, bus drivers & conductors and elected representatives at all levels.

The Times of India

2021-04-11

Chandigarh