Fortnight on, vaccination count drops drastically in Patiala district

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Patiala, February 23

Once the deadline set by the Election Commission of India lapsed, the average daily vaccination count in the district has dropped drastically.

Over the past two weeks, the count has come down from 26,982 on February 12 to just 3,977 on Wednesday.

The Election Commission had directed the Health Department to vaccinate 91 per cent of the target population with the first dose and 72 per cent with the second dose by February 12, which was extended by a couple of days.

Currently, around 88 per cent of target population has been partially vaccinated while 64 per cent has taken both the doses. Earlier, the Health Department had claimed to have vaccinated 90 per cent of the target population However, the data was allegedly manipulated by taking vaccination count of the children in the age group of 15- 18 years into consideration.

When asked about the drop in the vaccination count, Veenu Goyal, nodal officer, said, “We have already reached a saturation point. Therefore, it is difficult to find enough beneficiaries for vaccination. However, our teams are on the ground to conduct door-to-door vaccination.”

Meanwhile, it was learnt that around 2 lakh beneficiaries in the district didn’t show up for the second shot and have skipped the due date for the dose.