Third Phase of COVID 19 Vaccination commences in Punjab

S.A.S. Nagar : The vaccination drive to combat COVID19 today entered the third phase with administration of jabs to the registered Construction Workers across the State falling in 18 to 44 years age group.Health Minister Punjab, Balbir Singh Sidhu personally supervised the State Level Launch of the vaccination drive at Mohali and appreciated that Mohali is leading the State in COVID 19 Vaccination.Talking to media at Dispensary, Phase7, Health Minister informed that all the registered construction workers and their family members in the age group between 18 to 44 years will be covered in the first round of Third phase of vaccination across the State, as per the lists provided by the Labour Department. In the first phase Health Care Workers(HCWs) and Front Line Workers were covered(FLWs) while in the second, elderly population and 45+ years persons with co-morbidities were covered. Now, our focus is on covering persons with highest risk of infection and transmission, to begin with. Pointing out the high risk groups, he said that certain professions have greater interactions with other individuals and are at highest risk of infection and transmission, and hence 30 percent of doses are allocated to this group. A list of professions at risk has already been presented in the strategy, but for May 2021, only the top three categories are to be included, viz., i) government employees, ii) construction workers, iii) teachers and other staff at government and private educational establishments falling in 18 to 44 age group. Thereafter, Individuals with co-morbidities in this age group, being at higher risk than will be covered in next round, said he.He said that the Government of Punjab has placed an immediate order of 30 lakh doses with Serum Institute of India Ltd., and has been informed that the allocation will be 4.29 lac doses for the 18–44-year age group for the month of May 2021 from which government received only 1 lakh doses, so far.Highlighting the strategy used for allocating the vaccines in districts, he said that districts have been ranked based on population based incidence, mortality and density into 3 zones, A, B and C, in order of priority, which are allocated 50 percent, 30 percent and 20 percent of doses.Within these zones, the vaccination would be limited to major centres of disease incidence since vaccine supplies are severely constrained; when further doses are available or as the epidemiologic situation changes, the prioritization framework may be modified, said he.