To ensure the protection of people visiting government offices from Covid infection, Deputy Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori has ordered the replacement of employees from pubic dealing seats who didn’t get the jab of Covid-19 vaccination.
Divulging the details, the deputy commissioner said that the decision has been taken during a state-level virtual review meeting chaired by Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Saturday. He stated that only those employees would remain on the public dealing seats, who have received the vaccination. Mr. Thori mentioned that in a larger public interest it has been decided to allow only vaccinated staff at public dealing seats to break the transmission chain. He asked all the government employees working at the public dealing positions to immediately get the vaccination to be able to maintain their respective positions while he asked officers to prepare a list of those sitting on these seats without getting a vaccine shot.
Meanwhile, he also urged all the super-spreader categories including restaurants, bars, hotels, marriage palaces, banquet halls, saloons, and industry owners to get their staff above the age of 45 vaccinated as the government is opening vaccination for this category from April 1, 2021. He stated that under the extended ambit of vaccination, the condition of co-morbidity has been removed by the government to ensure vaccination of all people above the age of 45.
The deputy commissioner asked health authorities to increase session sites to 300 from the existing 105 sites as the government is starting vaccination at all health & wellness centers across the district besides strengthening the mobile vaccination van facility. Notably, as of now, there are 105 session sites include 50 government and 55 private centers, which would be increased to 300 in the coming days.
The DC further informed that about 85 percent of frontline workers and 60 percent healthcare workers have been inoculated in Jalandhar besides vaccination of 33845 citizens falling under the category of senior citizens and beneficiaries above the age of 45 with co-morbidities. He further added that the administration has arranged as many as 957 level-II and 350 level-III beds in the various covid care centers of which 58.03 and 36.29 percent beds are available in both facilities respectively.
Mr. Thori apprised the Chief Secretary that a total of 35897 samples have been collected in the last seven days with a daily average of above 5000 and already strengthen its samplings and inoculation drive by taking a slew of measures to facilitate beneficiaries. He mentioned that curfew-like strictness has been ensured in the containment and micro-containment zones to curb the virus transmission and a hundred percent sampling was being conducted in these zones.
Prominent among others present on the occasion included Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) Vishesh Sarangal, Civil Surgeon Dr. Balwant Singh, District Immunization Officer Dr. Rakesh Chopra, and Deputy Medical Commissioner Dr. Jyoti.