After days of trickle, vaccination sees a fillip in Kashmir

After days of trickle, over 28000 people received COVID19 vaccine in Kashmir division on Saturday, a pace that the Government claimed would continue for the next few days. Three districts in J&K achieved 100 percent vaccination for the 45-plus age group.

In a reprieve to people, 1200 vaccination sites were opened across the UT today. Hundreds of vaccination sites that had been locked up beginning May due to unavailability of vaccines were also opened again. At the end of Saturday, 28390 people were vaccinated in the Kashmir division in the 45 plus age group, a senior official from the Health and Medical Education Department said. He said 11485 people received the vaccine in the Jammu division on the day.

   

The official said the vaccination pace was increased as Kashmir received a fresh consignment of vaccines on Friday. “The division had 90,000 vaccine stock earlier this week, part of which had already been consumed,” he said, adding that the UT administration decided to “sustain vaccination” for a longer period of time. It was due to this reason, he said, the vaccination was “kept low key” for two days. “When vaccines are made available, Kashmir’s vaccination shoots up drastically now,” he said. In the Jammu division, he said, the vaccination pace was “quite steady”.

Financial Commissioner Health and Medical Education Department Atal Dulloo said the vaccination sites were increased to accommodate more people. He confirmed that a fresh stock of 50,000 vaccines had been received. “We are in touch with GoI and more vaccines are expected in coming days,” he said.

Meanwhile three districts in J&K – Jammu, Ganderbal and Shopian – have completed vaccination of cent percent people over 45 years of age. District Srinagar has vaccinated 37 percent people in this age group. District Bandipora and Budgam have been able to cover around 70 percent of population.

On May 20, after weeks of no vaccine, six vaccination sites were opened for the 45 plus age group in Srinagar. Three of these sites were located at Police Hospital, Church Lane and Badami Bagh Cantonment and reserved for police, Army and defence personnel respectively as per the CoWin website. At the three sites for civilians – SMHS Hospital, NTPHC Jawahar Nagar, State Cancer Institute SKIMS, queues of people were seen for the initial two days. The queues were often seen turning into hordes and brawls as people tried to push their entry into the vaccination centers and get their shot.

On the first day, 2590 vaccines had been administered in the Kashmir division while on the second day, Friday, 2561 vaccines were administered. In the past three days, a cumulative of 33,541 vaccines have been given in the Kashmir division. In Jammu division 13760, 9349 and 12840 vaccines were given on these three days respectively, the cumulative total being 34594.

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