PunjabChief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, on Thursday ordered strict enforcementof Covid appropriate protocols to prevent any super spread events, along withincrease in daily vaccination doses to 2 lakh, and a special control room to beset up for effective in-person monitoring of home isolation cases.
Citingfigures on mortality and positivity, the Chief Minister said the restrictionscurrently in place are showing results, and the same needed to be implementedstrictly, particularly in Mohali and other big cities showing high rates oftransmission and positivity.
Hepointed out that the state’s positivity rate stands at 8.1%, even thoughpositivity in the age group of less than 40 years had come down from 54%(September 2020) to 50% (March 2021). The curbs, coupled with strong efforts byall concerned, had helped reduce the percentage of mortality in the age groupbelow 60 years from 50% (September 2020) to 40% (in March 2021), and should bestrictly adhered to, he added. However, he reiterated his demand that theCentre should allow vaccination for under 45 in areas with more cases, sincethe UK variant was infecting youngerpeople more. He directed Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan to pursue the matter withthe central government, while Dr KK Talwar stressed that patients of kidney andliver disease who are under 45 years should at least be allowed to bevaccinated.
TheChief Minister was chairing a virtual meeting with several ministers, includingHealth Minister Balbir Sidhu, Education Minister Vijay Inder Singla &Medical Education Minister OP Soni, along with senior administrative and policeofficials as well as medical/health experts to review the Covid and vaccine situationin the state.
Makingit clear that there was no scope for complacency, the Chief Minister said thespecial control room with dedicated team could utilise ANMs, ASHA workers,interns from medical colleges, to move beyond just telephonic to more in-personmonitoring. GMCHs should provide students to RRTs at District Levelimmediately, he further directed the Health Department.
Onthe vaccination front, the Chief Minister directed the Health Department tofurther scale up vaccination efforts to vaccinate the entire eligiblepopulation within this month, along with auditing of any deaths taking placeafter vaccination. While vaccination has increased to 90,000/ day we need tofurther take it up to 2,00,000/ day, he said, with Punjab currently has 3 lakhCovishield and 1 lakh Covaxin in stock.
Pointingto a Punjab Police case study, shared by DGP Dinkar Gupta, the Chief Ministerpointed out that percentage increase in vaccination among police personnel hadled to a clear downward trend and decline in active positive cases among theforce.
The empirical data clearly shows a positive effect of vaccinationamongst the policemen, and not only the number of active positive cases has comedown, but the policemen requiring critical medical care have also becomenegligible, the DGP informed the Chief Minister, citing the study findings. Hedisclosed that as against a peak of 1700 daily cases last year, this surge had seen only 400 cops gettinginfected on any given day at its peak. He informed the meeting that aftertaking the second dose, there had been no death in the department due to Covid.
TheChief Minister directed the Police Department to persuade and take for testingall those showing Covid inappropriate behaviour in public places, including atmarriage palaces, and if they subsequently agree and are eligible, then alsotake them for vaccination, without use of any coercive measures.
Pointingto the low contact tracing, Captain Amarinder asked the Department to aim for30 contacts per positive patient. 100% of contacts traced must be tested withRAT for quicker identification and isolation of those who are positive, hesaid, adding that turnaround time for RTPCR samples needs to be reduced to lessthan a day. Approved list of privatelabs and well-functioning hospitals for testing should be put up in the publicdomain immediately, he further said, adding that while sampling has reached40,000/day, it needed to be pushed up further to at least 50,000/ day.
Ventilatorsshould be assigned to hospitals where they are needed, the Chief Ministerfurther directed, adding that Oxygen kits, Remdesivir and other medicines areavailable in sufficient quantity, and must be effectively utilised. Districtssuch as Jalandhar, Mohali, Ludhiana where there is higher level of L3 patientsmust increase the L3 capacity by directing private hospitals to reserve morebeds for Covid, he further said.
HealthSecretary Hussan Lal informed the Chief Minister that there was currently noshortage of Oxygen in the state, with three Oxygen plants already operationaland two more in the process. He said the department was grateful to theRajasthan chief minister for providing it with 20,000 doses of Remdisivir,which have been given out to both Government (12500) and well-functioningprivate (7500 doses) hospitals. Punjab still has about 7000 doses in stock,after giving around 300 even to PGI, he added.
Stressingthe need for optimum utilisation of manpower, the Chief Minister said while thePolice Department was already providing manpower and other support for theCovid effort, all other Departments, especially School Education and HigherEducation, must also immediately issue orders regarding availability of stafffrom their departments.