2nd dose: HP exceeds 85% vaccination
Shimla: With active Covid cases below 800-mark and case fatality at 1.68 percent, vaccination of first dose for above 18 years achieved 100 percent and second dose exceeding 85 percent, Himachal Pradesh seems to have beaten the country's trend, even a few states, taking a significant lead in the Covid management, post second dose.
State's health secretary Amitabh Awasthi told Millennium Post that the state has scaled up its vaccination drive to meet the timeline of November 30 set by the Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to achieve 100 percent coverage for both the doses.
"We are doing door to door.Our teams of dedicated health workers, ASHA and para medical staff are so motivated that they don't mind tracking high mountains, valleys and cross over to perennial rivulets to track every single left over members of the family. The public response is too good," he informed.
Till November 21, the state's health department has already administered first dose of Covid vaccination to 57.79 lakh persons and second dose to another 46.02 lakh. The ratio is highly encouraging despite tough geographical conditions, terrains and weather hostilities.
The Covid situation in the state, he claimed, is also very much under control despite the state having witnessed four bypolls including a parliamentary constituency of Mandi, and three state Assembly constituencies.
The post festival season did send some worries to the health department as the fatality rate suddenly took a jump, even reporting nine deaths a day but slowly it subsided. The recovery rate is also 97.8 percent and positivity rate is 5.95 percent.
"We are only telling the people to follow a restricted Covid appropriate behaviour as the winters could result in some surge again. The people live in closed accommodations due to snowfall and extreme winters. This can be a reason if there is any spike in December –January."
State's health secretary Awasthi was, however, of the view that it's really tough and almost impossible to forecast how the Covid will behave in the coming two or three months as some European countries are seeing a fresh surge.
The Centre has not yet given any guidelines about the booster dose or any other remedy as even the vaccination of the children below 18 years is yet to start, if the Centre takes a call.
Yet, Himachal Pradesh being a tourist state has to remain watchful and maintain a consistency in the vaccination and also adherence to the guidelines like wearing of masks and social distancing, health secretary admits.
Himachal Pradesh has already opened the schools for all classes above 3rd and even has taken a decision to hold examinations offline.
