PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday promised to initiate a mobile vaccination drive by May 25 for vaccinating the bedridden and invalid even as he said a strategy was in place to vaccinate all Goan residents above 45 years by June 10.
Sawant disclosed that on the suggestion of Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho, his government will try to initiate a mobile vaccination drive by May 25 for Goan residents who are bedridden and invalid.
He said, “after 15 to 20 days, we will be ready to initiate PHC-wise mobile vaccination for such people”.
Local self-government bodies will have to compile a list of these beneficiaries and can hand over this list to the concerned PHC after 15 days, he said.
Addressing almost 2,000 elected representatives of local self government institutions, Sawant said, “We plan to vaccinate all Goan residents above 45 years of age by June 10. If these 2,000 representatives accompany at least 10 people to the vaccination centre in their area every day then we will be able to vaccinate 20,000 people a day”.
He said that if the government successfully concludes the vaccination drive for the age group of above 45 years, vaccinating citizens between 18 and 44 years of age will become easy.
“Complete vaccination will reduce mortality. There is not a single instance of a person dying of Covid after taking both doses. On May 9, we recorded deaths of five persons who had taken only the first dose of the vaccine. They delayed the second dose. 100% vaccination is the only alternative we have,” said the CM.
He urged all the elected representatives to share and allot timing among themselves for their batch of beneficiaries and to visit vaccination centres in a staggered manner from morning 9 am till evening 6.30 pm.
Over the coming 10 days, all elected representatives from local bodies have been asked to target those from the 45 and above age bracket who have not received their first dose. Thereafter, they have been directed to start focusing on those who have completed a month since their first dose. “Let’s dedicate one month till June 10 for this task of vaccination,” Sawant stated.
