Kerala Health Minister points warning to well being staff skipping Covid vaccine pictures
2 min read Express News Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Notwithstanding the rise within the variety of well being staff taking the primary dose of Covid vaccine not too long ago, the well being division could have a troublesome activity to finish the primary section of vaccination this week.
With only a week left for the beginning of section II vaccination, a bit of well being staff, together with medical doctors, continues to avoid the drive.
There are nonetheless over lakh well being staff to be vaccinated, prompting Health Minister Ok Ok Shailaja to challenge a warning that these skipping appointments with out intimation will miss the possibility. According to the minister, the deliberate skipping has affected the probabilities of others within the line.
Among the neighbouring states, Kerala is trailing behind Karnataka, however forward of Tamil Nadu in whole vaccination.
According to officers, a number of the well being staff select to keep away from the primary section altogether for varied causes from unfounded security considerations to complacency after getting contaminated.
“Some people have taken a wait-and-watch approach. Though there have been no serious adverse reaction so far, some of the beneficiaries have become extra conscious,” mentioned an officer.
“A large section of health workers is infected with Covid-19. Some among them have become complacent in taking vaccine because they assume they have acquired immunity.”
He, nevertheless, mentioned the primary section shall be accomplished with none points. There are 1.91 lakh beneficiaries within the authorities sector and a pair of.25 lakh within the personal sector.
Despite the flowery marketing campaign by the well being division, the drive has been sluggish because the starting on January 16. Against the 4.16 lakh registered, the division may cowl the primary one lakh by January 28. In the preliminary days, the protection was solely 66 to 70% of the every day targets.
Though the preliminary delay was blamed on Co-WIN, a web-based platform on vaccination, the division later fashioned an motion plan to extend vaccination by rising the variety of centres and vaccination days.
While the variety of centres was 133 (8,062 vaccinated) to start with, it was elevated to 449 on February 1 (32,216 vaccinated) and 452 on February 2 (30,905 vaccinated).
The second section includes frontline staff together with police, income workers and municipal staff. In the third section, most people above the age of fifty shall be included within the drive.
