Chief Minister says drive to take-off after arrival of vaccines
PANAJI
After much bravado that all adults aged above 18 years will be rolled out the Covid-19 vaccine from May 1, the Goa government has done a U-turn: the Covid-19 vaccination programme for the 18-45 years group will not begin from Saturday after all.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant admitted on Thursday that the State government will begin the vaccination drive for the younger group only when the stocks arrive.
Sawant said: “Vaccine manufacturing companies are in the process of expanding their capacities. Third vaccine is also getting introduced. Goa has placed an order of 5 lakh doses with the Serum Institute. Vaccination for the 18-45 age group will progress as and when we receive the doses.”
Earlier, the government had announced that mass vaccination of the younger 18-45 year age group will commence from May 1 across the country and had even bragged about high registrations for receiving the first jab on the central government’s app for the purpose.
But now, much as the case is with several other States, there are no stocks of the vaccine to implement the plan.
Goa has thus far received supplies of 4.3 lakh vaccine doses so far and has vaccinated over 2.5 lakh people with the first dose and around 68,000 from among them have also got the second dose.
“We have only 1.1 lakh doses available with us right now for further vaccination,” Sawant said, adding that the vaccination programme for the younger 18-45 year age group will be planned and announced in due time.
Meanwhile, the ruling BJP party in Goa, which had widely publicised the State government’s decision to vaccinate all above 18 years of age for free from May 1, has put out alerts on various social media platforms asking youth not to queue up at vaccination centres from Saturday.
Meanwhile, the vaccination drive for 18-44 category in many other States will not take off from May 1 for want of supply of doses.
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Puducherry said they did not have adequate stocks of vaccines to meet the expected rush of immunity seekers, even as the country’s Covid graph, including in southern states, has been mercilessly on the upward trend.
Due to the uncertainty over the supply of Covid-19 vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin, the Tamil Nadu government on Friday deferered its rollout of the massive vaccination drive for the 18-44 years age group on May 1 as originally planned.
Explaining the predicament, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan said, “instead of waiting till tomorrow (and disappoint people), I wish to clarify (now) that we are unsure when and how much out of 1.5 crore doses of vaccine sought by Tamil Nadu, will arrive.”
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state can’t decide anything on its own when there is a shortage.
Meanwhile, people in the 18-44 age group will be vaccinated in Rajasthan from Saturday, state Health Minister Raghu Sharma said.
