Punjab to vaccinate all persons above 45 years of age in April

Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], April 3 (ANI): With an aim to contain the spread of COVID in the state, Punjab Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Saturday ordered to vaccinate all persons above 45 years of age by end of April.
"She directed the Administrative Secretary in-charge of each district to oversee the planning and response system," the official statement said.
Chairing a high-level meeting to review the COVID vaccination and management in the state here, the Chief Secretary directed all deputy commissioners, police commissioners and district police chiefs to focus on reducing the mortality rate and make efforts to increase the contact tracing, testing as well as to enhance the vaccination drive exponentially to take Punjab out of the present critical situation.
Mahajan stressed that the COVID norms should be strictly enforced in order to contain the number of cases, which increased exponentially in the past week in Punjab.
She expressed concern on the reports that a majority of people were still not wearing masks at social, political and religious gatherings, which could turn the COVID situation more disastrous in the state.
Taking stock of the present situation with the District Collectors, Police Commissioners, SSPs and civil surgeons, the Chief Secretary was informed that approximately 10 lakh people have been inoculated so far and the state's plan was to vaccinate 32 lakh citizens in the coming two weeks.
She instructed the state machinery to increase the testing capacity to 60,000 tests per day so that the situation of COVID could be controlled timely.
Mahajan further directed the district administrations to collect the samples of the COVID patients at the earliest and provide the results as soon as possible so that the positive patients should make themselves quarantined immediately.
She desired that the doctors and health workers should visit the patients in isolation and proper guidance should be provided to the patients whether there was a need for any medication and further investigations.
She motivated the doctors to work with utmost sincerity in this difficult situation.
The Chief Secretary asked the district administrations to rope in non-governmental organizations and other civil society groups for motivating the people to take the jab without any hesitancy.
She directed the administrations to send the samples thrice a day to the laboratories to enhance the Covid testing and results of the tests should be made available swiftly to the patients.
Presenting the state strategy on Covid management, testing, tracing and vaccination, the Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Hussan Lal, said "The doctors were directed to upload the sample and vaccination data on COVID portal on a real-time basis and the messages should be sent to the beneficiaries so that they could reach the vaccination sites in time."
He unveiled the six pillars to win the battle against COVID, which included containment and surveillance, testing, treatment, vaccination, citizen communication and information management.
He disclosed that around 80 per cent of COVID cases in Punjab in this second wave have been found infected with UK strain.
The Director-General of Police (DGP), Dinkar Gupta, informed that about 1.5 lakh RT-PCR tests have been done through the police personnel so far. Besides, two battalions of Punjab Police personnel have been completely inoculated and 74 per cent of the police personnel have already received the jab.
He advised the people to follow the Covid norms properly and asked them not to gather for parties in hotels and restaurants till the situation normalises.
Meanwhile, Punjab reported 2,705 fresh COVID cases, 2,781 discharges, and 49 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per the State health department today. (ANI)