Chandigarh police vaccine coverage only 8 pc

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 21

Vaccine hesitancy among the frontline workers has been even poorer than the healthcare workers as the total coverage to date stands at 16 per cent.

A high incidence of hesitancy has been observed among the employees of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (Municipal Corporation) and the Chandigarh Police Department with only 1.35 per cent and 8 per cent vaccine coverage respectively.

Similarly, the vaccine coverage of the employees of the Department of Social Welfare has been only 10 per cent so far. However, the registered beneficiaries of the CRPF and the ITBP have shown good response to vaccination with a coverage of 56 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively.

A UT police officer, requesting anonymity, said: “The common concern among us is the fear of any side effect. Besides, there are hardly any cases of Covid-19, so where is the need for the vaccine?”

The UT Adviser, Manoj Parida, said: “Our success in controlling Covid cases has led to a failure in popularising vaccination. The absence of a scare of corona infection has caused casual attitude towards vaccination. Had the vaccine been introduced at the time when infection was at its peak, there would have been a huge demand rush for vaccination. We are conducting doubts sessions to address the queries of the frontline workers to enhance vaccine coverage.”

There are 23,584 frontline workers in Chandigarh, of whom 3,646 (16 per cent) have been vaccinated. The Health Ministry has advised the states and UTs that all frontline workers must be scheduled for vaccination at least once by March 1.

All frontline workers will be given the opportunity of mop-up rounds by March 6.