GURUGRAM: The city reported a 44% turnout on the first day of Phase 2 of the Covid-19
vaccination drive on Thursday, with 481 of the targeted 1,100 frontline workers turning up to get their first dose. At all the 11 session sites,
Covishield was administered to the recipients. No adverse events were reported.
Haryana health minister
Anil Vij inaugurated the session site at the police commissioner’s office. City police commissioner K K Rao was the first to get the jab. Gurugram deputy commissioner Yash Garg was also vaccinated.
While the session sites for MCG and revenue officials saw a slow response, those for cops witnessed a huge turnout. Only five officials came forward to get their first doses at the session site, which had targeted 100 recipients from the revenue department. In contrast, 409 policemen got vaccinated out of the targeted 500.
For Gurugram police, the session sites were located at the police commissioner’s office, Sohna city police station, police line police station, DCP (east) office and Manesar police station. Revenue department staff were inoculated at the DC’s office.
At the 31 session sites for healthcare workers, 506 of the 650 targeted recipients got their first doses.
“We have made all arrangements and have been motivating people to get vaccinated. This is a voluntary exercise. We are expecting more people to go for
vaccination in the coming days,” said Gurugram chief medical officer Virender Yadav.
The department said it is not setting up any more session sites for
Covaxin in this phase as recipients are not willing or interested in taking it. “So far, we have administered Covaxin to a little more than 1,000 recipients in the city. People have unfounded fears and an unprecedented anxiety to even get vaccinated. They should come forward to take the shots,” said Dr MP Singh, nodal officer for Covid vaccination.
Vij also appealed to people to get inoculated. “It is the only way forward and people should take the vaccine as and when it is available to them. Nearly one lakh frontline workers will be vaccinated in Haryana in the second phase. We have already completed 65% of our target for vaccinating healthcare workers in Gurugram,” he said.
Gurugram’s total target for the second phase is 18,000 recipients, for which it will hold daily sessions. On Friday, 16 session sites will target 1,600 frontline workers. The number of sites for policemen will be increased to 10 from five on Thursday. The city is aiming to inoculate 450 revenue recipients and 9,000 policemen in this phase.
Meanwhile, 14 people tested positive for
Covid-19 in the city on Thursday, taking its caseload to 58,294. The health department said 31 patients recovered on the day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 57,582. So far, 354 people in the city have died of Covid, of whom 273 had comorbidities.
The city has a total of 358 active cases, and 322 of the patients are in home isolation. The recovery rate stands at 98% while the positivity rate is 0.6%.
In the past 24 hours, the health authorities collected 3,553 samples for antigen and
RT-PCR tests. Till now, 7,57,665 samples have been sent for testing, out of which 6,95,818 returned negative.