Covid-19: Record 5.5L jabbed in Punjab, highest in a day

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 3

After reporting a dip in the number of people being vaccinated over the past one week, the state under the “Mega Vaccination Drive” today administered the highest 5.5 lakh doses in a single day.

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According to the data of the health department, in the last seven days (June 26 to July 2), the state administered 5.94 lakh doses. However, in the previous week (June 19 to June 25), the number of doses administered was 6.47 lakh. However, after the decline, the state set a new record on Saturday.

In a statement, Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said the government for the first time received 6,84,240 doses of Covishield and 61,100 of Covaxin in a single installment late on Thursday evening. “After receiving the vaccine, the government prepared a roadmap of ‘Mega Vaccination Drive’ to cover a minimum of 5 lakh persons in one day,” he said.

Sharing the district-wise data, Sidhu said Ludhiana led all districts by administering 82,667 doses, followed by Hoshiarpur (77,930) and Jalandhar (62,000).

Pointing out the “disparity” while supplying the vaccine to states, the Health Minister said Punjab had been receiving less number of doses as compared to the neighboring states Haryana and Rajasthan, where the vaccination drive was in full swing.

However, Punjab was running short of vaccine consecutively for three days. “Due to disparity in supply, some of the vaccination centres remained closed. The vaccination coverage of Punjab came down to just 16,000-17,000 from June 27 to July 2, but it swiftly moved up to 5 lakh after we received sufficient doses,” Sidhu said.

Divulging details about the supply of vaccine last week, the Health Minister said Punjab received only 79,550 doses of Covishield on June 24, 79,540 on June 25 and 31,580 doses of Covaxin on June 29. The stock of Covishield remained almost nil from June 27 to July 1, which slowed down the vaccination drive. The number of Covid vaccination has been decreased from 1,14,655 on June 22 to 17,704 on July 1 in the state.

Expressing concern over the third wave, Sidhu said the government had been preparing to cope up with any emergency, but less supply of vaccination from the Centre was hitting the drive hard.

Currently, 4.8 per cent of Punjab’s eligible population was fully vaccinated. The state has administered 71.7 lakh doses of vaccine in the past four months. In break-up, 61.5 lakh people have been given the first dose and 10.2 lakh have been given both the doses.

Among districts, Ludhiana tops the chart with 7.7 lakh doses, followed by Jalandhar (5.3 lakh), SAS Nagar (5.2 lakh), Hoshiarpur (4.3 lakh) and Amritsar (4.1 lakh).