Turnout at 44% on Day One of second phase of vaccinations in Gurugram

The second phase of Covid-19 vaccinations started on Thursday, but only 44% of the 1,100 registered front-line workers, which comprised police, municipal workers and revenue department staffers, showed up to take the jabs, according to the district health department data

The second phase of Covid-19 vaccinations started on Thursday, but only 44% of the 1,100 registered front-line workers, which comprised police, municipal workers and revenue department staffers, showed up to take the jabs, according to the district health department data.

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A reluctance among workers of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and revenue department led to a boycott of vaccination at a few session sites and caused an overall dip in the footfall on the first day of inoculation of front-line workers.

Of the 1,100 front-line workers, only 481, comprising police, MCG and revenue department workers, took the Covishield jab at 11 dedicated session sites. Over 400 of the total who took the jabs were police personnel, said officials. Almost 81% of the 500 targeted police personnel turned up for the vaccinations at the five session sites.

The other two departments — MCG and revenue – together reported a turnout of only 14%. Against a target of vaccinating 500 MCG workers, comprising sanitation and other staff, only 67 turned up across the five vaccination sites, while only five of the 100 revenue department workers took the shot at the session site set up at the Mini Secretariat.

Haryana home minister Anil Vij, who is also the state health minister, inaugurated the second phase of Covid-19 vaccination drive at police commissionerate in Gurugram. The commissioner of police, KK Rao, and deputy commissioner of Gurugram, Yash Garg, were present during the inauguration and received their shots in the presence of the minister.

Vij said that across the state, about 450,000 front-line workers have been identified for the second phase of vaccinations. In Gurugram, roughly 18,000 such workers are registered, who are planned to be covered across the 11 session sites, said officials.

Considering the high footfall among its employees, the police department has planned to add five more new sites to the existing ones.

On the other hand, among the MCG sites — the MCG office in Sector 34, community centres in Islampur, Sukhrali, sectors 27 and 10A — a few of them lacked proper management on Thursday. A vaccination site was yet to be set up at the MCG’s Sector 34 office till 11am, as per a visit by the HT team. Besides, the site lacked proper seating space for observation after vaccinations and had no facility for adverse events.

MCG officials present at the site said that messages were not delivered to the vaccine beneficiaries. “We are contacting some of our employees to come for vaccination,” said an official, who did not wish to be named.

The staff at the site said that none of the senior officials of the agency had turned up for the inoculations.

Confusion prevailed at the Islampur site due to the presence of two community centres in the area. The session site was opened after 11.30pm and over 40 sanitation workers who had reached the site boycotted the vaccination due to apprehensions.

According to the district health department data, two session sites set up for the MCG, at Islampur and Sukhrali, reported zero vaccinations. Ashish Singla, the medical officer of MCG, was unavailable for comment.

“The health department provides vaccinators, data entry operators and helps in arranging police personnel at the vaccination site fixed by the department concerned,” said Dr MP Singh, district immunisation officer.

“Other arrangements — from setting up the vaccination site to motivating employees — had to be done by the department. It can be expected that the footfall of MCG employees will improve on Friday,” Singh said.

The health department also continued with the vaccination of healthcare workers. Of the 650 people targeted on Thursday, at least 506 workers took the vaccine shot.