Noida, Ghaziabad to conduct comprehensive vaccination dry-run on January 11

Different districts in Uttar Pradesh — including Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar — will conduct a comprehensive “dry run” at all the proposed Covid-vaccination centres in order to ensure that procedures and infrastructure is synchronised and the vaccine roll out poses no issues to the recipients

Different districts in Uttar Pradesh — including Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar — will conduct a comprehensive “dry run” at all the proposed Covid-vaccination centres in order to ensure that procedures and infrastructure is synchronised and the vaccine roll out poses no issues to the recipients.

HT Image

During the previous dry-run on January 5, both Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar had conducted the process at six centres —three each in rural and urban centres.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that India would take a landmark step forward in fighting the coronavirus pandemic on January 16 when the government begins the drive to vaccinate nearly 30 million health care and front line workers.

The UP government has already rolled out vaccination-related guidelines on December 21 last year and said that health care workers (HCWs), which include staff of government and private health care facilities, will get the vaccine in the first phase.

The second phase is scheduled for front line workers such as police personnel, home guards, jail staff and employees of Nagar Palikas, among others, while the third category includes people aged over 50 years and also those aged below 50 but suffering from comorbidities like diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure.

“The full dry run will be conducted in the district on January 11 and it will cover all the proposed vaccination-centres. This will be the second dry run, with the first one being limited to six centres. At that time, the online portal was working a bit slow and we hope that it will be better this time. We think that the real challenge will be when actual vaccine arrives,” said Suhas LY, district magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar.

“For the actual vaccination drive, the police already have a security plan in place to cover storage and transit of vaccines as well as to protect the vaccination-centres,” he, added.

The district has come up with 13 cold storage points for storing of vaccine besides the main vaccine depot. The officials have also identified 73 centres where the vaccination will take place and a list of about 21, 543 doctors and medical staff has been identified for vaccination under the first phase.

The dry run is intended to test the efficacy of infrastructure as well as other resources so that the actual vaccination process can be carried out without any hitches.

The Ghaziabad district has also identified a list of 44 locations, including 30 private health care facilities, where actual vaccination will take place. The district has identified about 21,800 health care workers who will take up vaccination under the first phase.

“During the dry-run on January 11, we will have 15 beneficiaries who will be assigned to one team. During the previous dry-run on January 5, we had assigned 25 beneficiaries to one team. For our 44 locations we have 70 teams. So, we are drawing up plans and preparing for a comprehensive dry run. With this dry run, we hope to get all our resources and infrastructure in place before the actual vaccination,” said Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer of Ghaziabad.

During the previous dry run, the health department had identified certain minor issues which they said will be taken care of before January 11.

NO NEW COVID DEATHS IN NOIDA, GHAZIABAD

At least 28 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the Gautam Budh Nagar district in the past 24 hours, taking the total cases in the district since March to 25,169, on Saturday.

According to the state health department’s daily bulletin, the district has 271 active cases, after considering cross-notifications to other districts. No new deaths were recorded in the district due to Covid, with the death toll remaining at 91, as per the bulletin. The recovery and case mortality rates were 98.56% and 0.36%, respectively.

In Ghaziabad, too, no new death due to Covid was recorded in the district in the past 24 hours, with the death toll remaining at 102. The fresh cases were 23, considering cross-notification, taking the total count to 26,317 cases since March. There were 302 active cases in the district and the recovery and case mortality rates stood at 98.46% and 0.39%, respectively.

Overall, the state has so far recorded a total of 592,475 cases since March and 8,481 deaths due to Covid so far.