Express News Service
LUCKNOW/CHANDIGARH/DEHRADUN/MUMBAI/GUWAHATI: Considering the risk of holding elections in the midst of a fresh spurt in Covid cases, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan had on December 27, 2021 held a high-level meeting with senior officials of the five poll-bound states and asked them to ramp up vaccination drive on an exponential scale.
However, data from the five states — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and Punjab — don’t suggest officials have stepped on the pedal to scale up the process exponentially.
In UP, for instance, 15.04 lakh people received the jab on December 27, which declined to 14.05 lakh on December 28 and further to 12.56 lakh the next day. Similarly, in Goa the vaccination figure on December 27 was 4,337 which dipped to 3,319 the next day and further to 2,949 on December 30.
In Uttarakhand, the number of overall vaccinations was 53,500 on December 28, which saw a decline over the next few days and stood at 45,200 on December 31.
In most of these states, the numbers dropped between December 31 and January 2. The figures picked up from January 3 when jabs for the 15-18 age group started.
In Uttarakhand, the vaccination figure for January 4 in the state health department’s daily bulletin had a discrepancy as the number of those vaccinated in the 15-18 age-group was higher than the total vaccination figure.
TNIE tried seeking clarification for the discrepancy but state health department officials did not respond to the queries.
With the Election Commission ruling out postponing the elections, the Centre and the poll panel have repeatedly asked the state authorities to scale up the inoculation drive to try and ensure 100% vaccination of the voter population before the elections.
The UP government has started Cluster Approach 2.0, under which special teams are visiting households to encourage people to get jabbed. All the surveillance panels comprising ASHA workers have been reactivated.
“They are deployed to hold door-to-door contact with people and convince them for vaccination as early as possible,” said Amit Mohan Prasad, additional chief secretary, health.
In Manipur, health department officials said there is still vaccine hesitancy among people and this is was one of the factors behind the low inoculation figures.
Namita Bajpai, Harpreet Bajwa, Vineet Upadhyay,Sudhir Suryawanshi & Prasanta Mazumdar
