SHILLONG, May 12: Meghalaya Government has expressed its displeasure that not many people are coming forward to take doses of Covid vaccines in the state.
Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong after charing a review meeting told reporters that the Government was not happy with the vaccination drive for people above 45 years of age as till now the vaccination coverage in the state stands at mere 37-38 percent.
If you get yourself vaccinated you will be safe and if you don’t get vaccinated, question goes to you individually,” Tynsong said.
Informing that the state is receiving 42000 doses of vaccines on Thursday, Tynsong made it clear that the Government will earmark more vaccines for vulnerable districts adding the vaccination drive meant for people in the age group of 18 to 44 years will start from May 14.
The State Government as of now does not have the details as to how many people in the age group have registered the vaccination through the portal of Union Government
When asked what could be the reason for less turnout of people for vaccination, Tynsong said that the Government was not aware of the reason but added that one reason may be that some people in social media were spreading superstitious information about the vaccine.
” It is something like that has contributed but we have directed our teams right up to the CHC level to aggressively explain and convince people to go for vaccination, ” Tynsong added.
The Government in its bid to allay the fears of people about vaccination is also coming up with a booklet in local languages.
Tynsong also asserted that medical experts and scientists from all over the world have proved that severity of COVID-19 has reduced drastically with vaccines.
” Who are we not to listen to medical scientists of the world and I don’t know who are the scientists of Meghalaya who say that people don’t need vaccines. If any person has that authority, et them come out we will debate and discuss,” Tynsong said
The Government also maintained that community spread has already taken place and people must adhere to all the protocols.
Reacting to fears that some people have died even after taking their vaccination, DHS (MI) Dr Aman War said that those who died, most of them were not vaccinated
He added that some people who were detected positive are asymptomatic and detected only during the random tests.
He also said that some of the people who have died even after taking vaccination, died of other diseases.