The third phase of COVID vaccination has yet to pick up pace despite the health authorities’ well-orchestrated endeavour to scale up the number of inoculated people.
A total of 2,25,365 senior citizens above the age of sixty years have received the COVID-19 vaccine dose till Tuesday after the commencement of third phase vaccination drive on 1st March in Odisha. In total, 9,68,766 doses of vaccines have been administered so far including the first and second doses.
“The pace of progress of vaccination, particularly the third phase covering the senior citizens and 45 plus people with comorbidities, has hardly been encouraging. The rising mercury might have prompted the elderly people not to turn up at the vaccination centres. Besides, the people with comorbidities have aired their grievance saying that the registered medical practitioners are unwilling to issue them the medical certificate for vaccination purpose”, said a senior official of the health and family welfare department on Wednesday.
Meanwhile the State on Wednesday reported 69 fresh cases of COVID-19 infection in the past 24 hours.
Forty-one new cases were reported in quarantine centres, while 28 fresh infections were detected during contact tracing. 15 of 30 districts reported new infections while Sundargarh district reported the highest number of new cases at 14.
A total of 85,35,657 sample tests have been conducted in the state so far including 23,425 on Tuesday. Odisha has reported a 3.96% positivity rate while 96.04% samples have tested negative for COVID-19.