Chandigarh, April 10
With Punjab left with only 5 days of supply (5.7 lakh Covid vaccine doses) at the current levels of vaccinating 85000-90000 persons a day, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has urged the Centre to share the schedule for supply of vaccines with the States over the next quarter based on their confirmed supply orders.

Hoping that the Centre would send fresh batches of vaccine supply soon, the Chief Minister said if the state is able to meet its target of 2 lakh vaccines a day, then its current supplies will last only 3 days. He said he had written to the Prime Minister & the Union Health Minister to give confirmed supply schedules.

Despite being a slow-starter in vaccination, Punjab has vaccinated more than 16 lakh persons, at an average of around 85000-90000 per day, he said during a video conference convened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the Covid situation. The meeting was attended by chief ministers of the Congress-ruled states, as well as senior party leaders, including Rahul Gandhi.

Ranking 18th in the country at present in terms of cases reported, Punjab is showing around 8% positivity, with an average of around 3000 cases per days for the past 15 days, the Chief Minister apprised Sonia. The number of cases is slightly stable, he pointed out, adding that “this shows that the steps taken in the last 3 weeks are in the right direction.” Even in the graphs put up by Health Ministry in Prime Minister’s review meeting yesterday, the “curve appears to be flattened over the past fortnight,” he said, disclosing that the state currently has around 27,200 active cases with recovery rate of 87.1%.

Thanking Sonia for giving the opportunity “to discuss and learn from each other on Covid management”, the Chief Minister, however, said deaths are a concern for Punjab, with around 50-60 daily deaths with a little under 2% Case Fatality Rate (CFR) in the second surge. Overall, CFR is 2.77% for all reported cases since March 2020, he added.

Pointing out that on April 9, a total of 3459 persons tested positive out of 41,347 samples tested and 56 deaths were reported, he said the high death rate has been on account of late reporting to hospitals, high co-morbidity (non-communicable diseases). Also, Punjab has reported all its cases very faithfully, he added.

Noting that high positivity is being seen in the younger population and as per reports received from NCDC and IGIB, more than 80% samples have been found to be positive for the more contagious and virulent UK variant, the Chief Minister shared with the Congress president the various measures taken by his government to combat the spread. These, he said, included complete ban on political gatherings till 30th April, imposition of night curfew across all districts from 9 pm to 5 am, restrictions on numbers in outdoor and indoor social gatherings and in cinema halls and malls, and closure of all educational institutions and Anganwadi Centres, with school exams being postponed. He said his government had to impose ban on political gatherings as opposition leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Sukhbir Badal were holding rallies in the state in violation of Covid norms.

Persons not wearing masks are compulsorily taken for RT-PCR testing, he said, adding that 2 lakh such people have so far been taken by police for RT-PCR testing. Further, Covid Monitors have been appointed in all Hotels, Restaurants & Marriage Palaces to ensure Covid-appropriate behaviour. All Health Care Workers who have not been vaccinated are being tested weekly for general safety, he revealed.

Captain Amarinder also gave details of testing and contact tracing, revealing that more than
40,000 COVID tests are being conducted per day of which more than 90% are RT-PCR, with Punjab’s testing per million is higher than national average. Testing average is 1350 per million (over last 7 days) against all-India average of 824 per million. Testing is being increased to 50,000 per day, he added.