Review strategy, vaccinate all in sensitive areas: Punjab CM to Centre

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 17

As active Covid cases in the state surged to 12,616, with daily rate climbing to over 5 per cent, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today urged the Centre to review its immunisation strategy to vaccinate all age groups in selected areas and announce a stricter policy to deal with the problem.

The CM also called for occupation-based immunisation for school and college students and teachers, judges, bus drivers and conductors, panches/sarpanches, mayors/municipal committee presidents, counsellors, MLAs, MPs etc. to pave the way for normalisation of crucial activities and check super-spreaders. He advocated early opening of the courts to end the wait for justice for citizens, and also of schools and colleges to bridge the gap between poor and affluent families in terms of education.

Apart from covering the entire population in selected areas, certain co-morbidity situations among those below 45 years, such as kidney and liver diseases, should also be covered across the state, the CM recommended, as the state continued to grapple with its second peak, which started from mid-February.

With the role of virus mutation still unclear, the CM underlined the need to strengthen viral sequencing, particularly in Punjab, “as over 50 per cent positive cases now were below 40 years of age and there was an urgent need to assess whether this was due to any variant.”

The state, he said, had sent a large number of samples for genome sequencing but few results had been received of which two indicated presence of variant.

Listing out the measures taken by his government to battle the ongoing second wave, the CM revealed that the state had imposed restrictions on social gatherings — maximum of 100 for indoor events and 200 for outdoor events. Nine districts have imposed night curfew from 11 pm to 5 am, while other districts have been asked to assess the situation and take action accordingly.

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