E-Paper
At 5.14 lakh jabs on Saturday, Punjab creates daily record
To date, 78 lakh doses of vaccine have been administered to people over 18 years of age, besides the priority groups. For the next couple of days, however, the state is left with only 75,000-odd doses as there is no word from the Centre about providing more vaccines.
Chandigarh Punjab administered a record 5.14 lakh jabs of Covid-19 vaccine on Saturday, creating a new daily record. To date, 78 lakh doses of vaccine have been administered to people over 18 years of age, besides the priority groups.
For the next couple of days, however, the state is left with only 75,000-odd doses as there is no word from the Centre about providing more vaccines.
State health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said, “On July 1, we received around 6.85 lakh doses of Covishield and 61,100 doses of Covaxin in one instalment. This was the first time the Centre supplied such quantities to Punjab.”
“From June 27 to July 2, the vaccination coverage of the state fell to an average of 17,000. After getting supply, we quickly moved to 5 lakh vaccinations, and that too in a day,” he added.
Sidhu added Ludhiana, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Muktsar, Gurdaspur, Mohali, Kapurthala and Pathankot districts exceeded their targets and if the supply was sufficient, the government planned to launch a ‘Mega Vaccination Drive’ to cover a minimum of 5 lakh persons in a day.
Ludhiana administered over 82,000 vaccines; Hoshiarpur (around 78,000) and Jalandhar (over 62,000). “Punjab has received lower number of doses than Haryana and Rajasthan,” Sidhu claimed, adding that Punjab received around 80,000 doses on June 24; around 80,000 on June 25, with the figure dropping to 31,580 doses of Covaxin on June 29.
The stock of Covishield remained almost nil from June 27 to July 1, which slow down the vaccination drive.
Principal secretary, health, Hussan Lal said, “The spread of the Delta Plus virus strain is a concern. Studies show that a person administered with the two doses of vaccine experiences fewer effects, whereas a person without even a single dose suffers.”
