Poor response to Covid vaccination drive from frontline workers of Punjab’s health dept

Karam Prakash
Tribune News Service
Patiala, February 8 

Frontline workers such as police personnel have shown a much better response to the COVID-19 vaccination drive than workers from the health department in Punjab.

Around 7, 477 frontline workers have already received the vaccine in the second phase over five days. Among frontline workers, police personnel were the ones who received the maximum Covid jabs in the second phase, said the Health Department.

Dr GB Singh, Director, Health and Family Welfare, said that in terms of frontline workers, police personnel’s response was better as compared to health workers.

“The response of others is better than the frontline workers of health.” He added no major side effect of the vaccination had been reported so far.

When asked about poor response from health workers, Dr GB said: “If they don’t want to get a vaccination shot, it is their loss.”

Meanwhile, the state health department said that 68,376 health workers had already received vaccine shots since 16 January — when the nationwide vaccine drive was kicked off.

Dr Rajesh Bhasker, state nodal officer, said that they had already asked the Civil Surgeons — of the districts that showed poor responses — to motivate health workers.

“As it has not been declared mandatory, We, therefore, can’t force them. However, we have asked the civil surgeons to motivate their workers for vaccination.”

Due to the poor response from health workers, state health department informed that 7 per cent of vaccine wastage had already been reported.