Cops sought to maintain order at vaccination sites

As many citizens continue to face challenges in availing of their second vaccine shot at government health centres due to long queues and lack of social distancing norms, the health department has written to the police department for handling the crowd at vaccination centres

As many citizens continue to face challenges in availing of their second vaccine shot at government health centres due to long queues and lack of social distancing norms, the health department has written to the police department for handling the crowd at vaccination centres.

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“A letter has been written to the police department seeking at least two police personnel for every vaccination centre to manage the crowd. If required, we will ask the police to increase the deployment,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer.

Since private hospitals are no longer administering doses, people who were supposed to take their second shots have been diverted to government health centres. Notably, with the inoculation of at least 6,347 residents on Thursday, the district crossed the 500,000 mark of administering doses in the district.

The government centres have limited staff and are inoculating vaccine beneficiaries between 18 and 44 years as well as those above 45 years.

Sunny Sarid, a resident of Sushant Lok 1, after noticing a rush at health centres, decided to wait for the next two to three weeks to take his second shot. “Standing in the crowd of 200 people is like exposing yourself to coronavirus infection. I took the first shot in Medanta Hospital, but now, the hospital is no longer vaccinating people. To take the second dose, we visited two government vaccination centres which had a crowd of more than 200 people, with none of them following social distancing norms,” said Sarid.

Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in a review meeting held on Thursday directed that the vaccination sites should be set up either in big halls or in open so that it should be ensured that the risk of infection spread is lessened and also that the Covid-19 protocol and norms are followed at the sites. Khattar said that soon, Haryana would be getting 350,000 vaccine doses.

To streamline the process, the district health department will hold vaccinations at 37 health centres on May 7, with nearly 300 doses to be given at each site to people aged 18 to 44, based on online reservations. At 31 centres, people above 45 years can get their second dose by direct walk-in, according to the district health department.

“At least 70% of the dose will be reserved for walk-in vaccine beneficiaries and 30% through online appointment for people above 45 years of age,” according to the details shared by the district health department.

“Out of the 31 health centres, at least four in Mullahera, Manesar, Bhondsi and Badshahpur will give a second dose of Covaxin, while the remaining will give Covishield,” said Yadav.

On Thursday, at least 2,751 people aged 18 to 44 took the jab, of which only 210 received the shot in private hospitals. For those above 45 requiring the second dose, the health department inoculated at least 3,090 people, while private hospitals gave vaccine shots to 101.