The State will take up the first round of COVID-19 vaccination for frontline workers for three days from February 8. A targeted 2,74,374 frontline workers from the departments of Home, Urban Development, RDPR and Revenue are scheduled to be covered during these three days.
In a circular issued on Saturday, Jawaid Akhtar, Additional Chief Secretary (Health and Family Welfare) has directed all health officials in the districts and BBMP to set up more vaccine session sites and schedule more number of beneficiaries for each session site. This is to ensure that all are covered during these three days.
Health officials said the State has adequate number of vaccine doses available to cover both healthcare and frontline workers. So far, the State has received 16,98,400 doses of Covishield and 3,56,340 doses of Covaxin.
Only Covishield
Health officials said only Covishield will be used to vaccinate frontline workers. “As the second dose for healthcare workers will start soon (28 days after the first dose), we do not have facilities to have two types of vaccines at the same time,” a top official told The Hindu .
Meanwhile, healthcare workers who have missed or have not yet been vaccinated will also be scheduled, and vaccination for them will be carried out simultaneously.
3.81 lakh vaccinated
So far, a total of 3,81,555 healthcare workers of the targeted 8,02,101 have been vaccinated in the State taking the overall coverage to 45%. On Saturday, the 22nd day after vaccination began on January 16, the State achieved a coverage of 24% with 22,787 of the day’s targeted 96,872 persons coming forward to take the jab.
531 new cases, three deaths
The State on Saturday reported 531 new cases of COVID-19, taking the total to 9,42,031. With three deaths, the toll rose to 12,233. This is apart from 19 deaths of patients due to non-COVID-19 reasons.
As many as 434 persons were discharged on Saturday, taking the total recoveries to 9,23,811. Of the remaining 5,968 active patients, 144 are being monitored in ICUs. While the positivity rate for the day stood at 0.71%, the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) touched 0.56%.
As many as 74,591 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, including 70,376 RT-PCR tests. With this, the total number of tests rose to 1,74,42,715.
Cartoon exhibition
Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar inaugurated a cartoon exhibition on COVID-19 and related aspects at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat. The main themes are COVID-19, vaccine and Ayushman Bharath-Arogya Karnataka scheme. More than 20 cartoonists from Bengaluru exhibited their works.
