The COVID-19 vaccination drive targeted at people above 45 years of age in the city and across the district will be intensified in the ongoing battle against the pandemic so as to cover the population group within the next 30 to 45 days.
Private hospitals in different wards of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) limits have been identified and a team of doctors and nurses will be deputed to each facility to provide the jab to the population group free of cost. This will help ramp up the coverage so as to inoculate nearly 3 lakh peoplein the city over the next few weeks.
Deputy Commissioner Rohini Sindhuri told mediapersons here on Saturday that the drive will commence from Sunday and as against the vaccination being administered 4 days a week, directives have been issued to administer the vaccines on all days of the week during April so as to increase the coverage.
Ms.Sindhuri said the level of vaccine hesitancy had considerably reduced and people were opting for it in bigger numbers.
The vaccination drive also comes in the backdrop of a surge in COVID-19 cases in the district and city in particular which has attained the dubious distinction of the highest positivity rate of 1.9 against the State average of 1.7. Ms. Sindhuri said in the district the highest number of cases were from Mysuru city and it was being attributed to the floating population. But there are no clusters. In places of tourist interest such as the zoo or the palace there are info kiosks and though tourists are advised to bring RT-PCR negative report it is not mandatory and cannot be enforced, according to the Deputy Commissioner.
She also said that the primary and secondary contacts of those who have tested positive were reluctant to get themselves tested. This could have a bearing on the community health and hence the onus was on them to volunteer for testing, said Ms. Sindhuri. However, the system of contact tracing and enforcing isolation or quarantining the primary and secondary contacts was on, she added.
The district administration has also analyszed the age group of the patients testing positive and a majority of them are below 45 years of age. Of the nearly 170 plus cases reported in Mysuru by Saturday noon, almost 144 was from the city underlining the complacency that has crept into the people, according to the Deputy Commissioner. The number of RT-PCR tests being carried out too has increased from about 4000 per day during September-October when the cases were at their highest in Mysuru, to 6,000 plus tests in the present times and hence the number of positive cases being detected was also increasing, said Ms. Sindhuri.
She said there are no restrictions on movement but for the fresh guidelines issued by the government. However, people were also not complying with COVID appropriate behaviour by adhering to established norms of maintaining social distance, wearing mask and abstaining from mass gathering.
The rural hinterland too is part of the current drive and the vaccination will also be administered at the 13 sub-centres of the Department of Health and Family Welfare where there are mid-level health workers. There is no scarcity of vaccines, , said the Deputy Commissioner.
