Collectors, senior cops take COVID-19 vaccine shots in Gujarat

Gujarat on Sunday launched aCOVID-19 vaccination drive for frontline workers, coveringover 70,000 beneficiaries in a single day, with districtcollectors, police officials and civic commissioners takingthe jabs among others in the initial hours, an officialstatement said.

As against the target to cover over one lakhbeneficiaries for the day, 71,534 frontline workers werevaccinated till 8 pm on Sunday, it said.

During the day, 19 district collectors, 11 districtdevelopment officers, and 23 superintendents of police,besides several senior officials of the home, revenue, urbandevelopment, panchayat, rural housing and rural developmentdepartments, were inoculated.

Talking to reporters after taking the vaccine shot,Ahmedabad Police Commissioner Sanjay Srivastava said everyoneneeds to get inoculated to win the war against COVID-19.

''I am feeling absolutely fine after gettingvaccinated...policemen are highly exposed, so the vaccinationwill protect them from the infection,'' he added.

Ahmedabad Collector Sandip Sagale, who was vaccinatedat the civil hospital here, said he and other senior stateofficials joined the drive ''to express our appreciation forthe work done by the frontline warriors during the coronaviruspandemic''.

He also appealed to all frontline workers to get themvaccinated against the viral disease, saying the vaccines are''completely safe and effective''.

The Gujarat health department said it will coveraround 3.3 lakh frontline workers under the second round ofthe COVID-19 inoculation drive which kick-started earlier inthe day.

Not a single person has experienced any serious side-effects due to the vaccination so far, it claimed.

In a related development, authorities ordered thepostmortem of a sanitation worker after he died within hoursof getting vaccinated in Vadodara earlier in the day, in orderto ascertain the cause of his death.

The department on Saturday said it had covered around50 per cent or 2,45,930 of the healthcare workers in the statein the first round of the vaccination drive that was launchedon January 16.

A total of 33,193 beneficiaries were vaccinatedacross 579 centres on Saturday, the health department said.

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