Healthcare workers must get vaccinated by Feb 12

Nitin Jain

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 3

Healthcare workers, who have not got themselves vaccinated against Covid-19 yet, can receive the jab by February 12, after which no more beneficiaries registered in the ongoing first phase of vaccination will be covered in the state.

This was stated a day after Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh launched the second phase to inoculate frontline workers on Tuesday. Disclosing this, here today, Hussan Lal, Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, said over 62,000 of total 2 lakh healthcare workers, constituting 31% of the persons registered on CoWin app, had been covered in the first phase.

While 1.04 lakh healthcare workers from the public sector were registered for vaccination in the first phase, the remaining 96,000 were from private health institutions.

The Health Secretary announced that after February 12, vaccination to administer the second dose to the already inoculated healthcare workers would start and the option of taking the first dose would not be available.

Sharing the details of the second phase, Hussan said as many as 260 vaccination sites had been identified in government and private health facilities.

Of 1.66 lakh frontline workers registered on the portal for the second phase, the maximum (1.31 lakh) were from the Department of Home Affairs, 31,000 were from the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs and the remaining 4,000 were from the Revenue Department.

“Primarily, vaccination to frontline workers will be provided at the nearest government healthcare facility. There is also a provision for setting up vaccination sites at the place of posting of frontline workers, provided they are in an adequate number at the place, and the required infrastructure, including computers, printers and Internet facility are available there,” said the Health Secretary.