E-Paper
Only 7% of Chandigarh’s adults inoculated with booster dose of Covid vaccine
So far in Chandigarh, only 60,530 adults (including all categories) have taken the booster dose of the Covid vaccine
Only 7% of Chandigarh’s adult population have taken the booster (third) dose of Covid vaccine so far, data shared by the UT health department revealed.
The same comes at a time when Centre reduced the duration of the mandatory gap between the second dose and the precautionary booster dose from nine months to six months last week, making the city’s entire adult population eligible for the dose.
So far in Chandigarh, only 60,530 adults (including all categories) — adding up to 7.18% — have taken the third dose as of Tuesday.
The central government had in phases allowed different sections of the population to take the free-of-cost booster dose, starting with healthcare and frontline workers as well as senior citizens with comorbidities from January 10 this year.
Senior citizens without comorbidities, adults (18 to 59 years of age) were later allowed to take a paid third dose of vaccine at private hospitals. Under the special 75-day drive, Covid Vaccine Amrit Mahotsav, however, the Centre allowed all adults to take free of cost third dose from government health facilities from July 15 to September 30.
Given the upward swing in the daily Covid cases in the city, UT adviser Dharampal had also reviewed the vaccination status on Monday and had asked the health secretary Yashpal Garg and department to make all out efforts to reach out to citizens for availing the free-of-cost booster dose facility within the 75-day period.
“We are aiming to vaccinate the maximum number of people at the camps and if any person is unable to walk to the facility, we can vaccinate them at their doorsteps. Health teams are already going door-to-door to vaccinate the maximum number of people”, Garg said on Tuesday.
Notably, the UT had achieved the target of fully vaccinating (first and second dose) all adults on January 25 this year.
Vax drive for children also drags
The vaccination drive of children in the city, meanwhile, also continues to slug at a slow pace, with only 71 children in the 12-18 age group getting vaccinated on Tuesday.
For the 12-14 age group category, 34,217 (76%) of the target population of 45,000 children have gotten the first dose. Only 20,196 (44%) have been given the second dose of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, for the 15-18 age group category, the target population is 72,000 children. Of this, 74,020 (103%) have taken the first dose, while 50,736 (70%) are fully vaccinated.
Tricity reports 232 fresh Covid cases, highest in five months
Continuing a slight upward trend, tricity on Tuesday reported 232 fresh Covid cases. The last time that tricity logged a higher number of fresh infections at 236 was over five months ago on February 10.
The new infections pushed the active cases tally to 1250, also a five-month high.
Within tricity, Mohali led with the maximum cases. As many as 89 fresh cases were reported in Mohali, taking the Covid count to 97,756.
Over the last 19 days, Mohali has registered 896 cases and six deaths, against the 805 cases and four deaths reported in June. There are 449 active cases in Mohali.
Chandigarh fresh infections rose slightly to hit 60 cases on Tuesday, against the 53 cases a day before. So far, 95,046 people have tested positive for Covid in the city, of which 529 currently have the virus.
Panchkula’s 83 fresh infections pushed its overall count to 45,869. Of these, 272 are among active cases. A total of 45,181 have recovered from the virus in the city, while 416 have succumbed to the infection.
