157 report for inoculation on Day 2
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, January 18
A marginal increase in the number of people reporting to get vaccinated for Covid-19 was registered on Monday.
On the second day of the vaccination drive, as many as 157 health workers received the shots in Jalandhar. Of 300 medical professionals, who had been sent messages, 143 gave the process a miss. Dr Chanjeev, Dr Sacchar, anesthetist Dr Paramjit Singh along with other doctors of the Civil Hospital also got vaccinated.
Even though marginal rise in the numbers is being registered, doctors at the Civil Hospital on Monday said the exercise would continue with three centres on Tuesday as well due to the limitations of the vaccination portal.
The three session sites continue to be the Civil Hospital Jalandhar; Basti Gujan CHC, Jalandhar; and Sub-Divisional Hospital, Nakodar.
As many as 11,800 health workers in Jalandhar have been listed to be vaccinated in the district in the first phase of the Covid vaccine. Notably, a majority of volunteers or beneficiaries of the vaccine continue to be from the government sector.
As many as 293 of the 600 people (300 each on Saturday and Monday) called on for the vaccination drive so far, which is a little less than the halfway mark. Besides, at various health centres and hospitals, the health staff continues to be wary of getting the shot and are waiting instead for other colleagues to be vaccinated first.
Amid apprehensions, the good news is that no adverse reaction to the Covishield vaccine has been reported in any of the doctors, paramedical or support staff vaccinated so far.
Dr Paramjit Singh, anesthetist and frontline worker, who is in charge of the ICU at the Civil Hospital, said: “Since I was away for some personal work on Saturday, I got the vaccine shots on Monday. I was kept under observation for half an hour. But no adverse reaction has been reported from anyone so far. Your arm is sore or a bit painful for a while after being vaccinated, but that’s about it. This is common among many other previous vaccines too.”
Dr Rakesh Chopra, District Immunisation Officer, said: “There has been a marginal but encouraging increase in the number of health workers reporting for being vaccinated. From 136 on Saturday, the number rose to 157 on Monday. We expect the number to gradually increase. If need be, another session site at PIMS shall also be made operational soon depending on the response. For now, we will continue to have three vaccination sites since currently the server is only picking as many entries.”
