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Amarinder: Anger against Centre over farm laws impacting vaccination drive

Since Punjab has a majority population among the agriculture community, even the common man is affected by the farmers’ agitation, he said, adding “this anger is impacting the vaccination drive.”

Amarinder: Anger against Centre over farm laws impacting vaccination drive

Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. (Photo: Twitter/@capt_amarinder)

Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday said the anger against the Centre over new farm laws is impacting the Covid-19 vaccination in the state, even as he said Punjab was left with only five days of supply of Covid vaccine doses and demanded fresh supply of the same.

During a video conference of the Congress-ruled states convened by the party president Sonia Gandhi to discuss the Covid situation, Amarinder said people in Punjab were still not coming out in large numbers for the vaccination due to the massive anger prevailing against the Central government on the issue of farm laws.

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Since Punjab has a majority population among the agriculture community, even the common man is affected by the farmers’ agitation, he said, adding “this anger is impacting the vaccination drive.” The CM said his government is undertaking an extensive media campaign to address the misinformation regarding Covid and vaccination hesitancy.

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With Punjab left with only five days of supply (5.7 lakh Covid vaccine doses) at the current levels of vaccinating 85,000-90,000 persons a day, Amarinder hoped the Centre would send fresh batches of vaccine supply soon.

Punjab has vaccinated more than 16 lakh persons, at an average of around 85000- 90000 per day, he said. Ranking 18th in the country at present in terms of cases reported, Punjab is showing around eight per cent positivity, with an average of around 3,000 cases per day for the past 15 days, the CM apprised Sonia.

The number of cases is slightly stable, he said adding even in the graphs put up by the health ministry in the Prime Minister’s review meeting yesterday, the “curve appears to have flattened over the past fortnight.” The state currently has around 27,200 active cases.

Amarinder said deaths are a concern for Punjab, with around 50-60 daily deaths with a little under two per cent case fatality rate (CFR) in the second surge.

On 9 April, a total of 3,459 persons tested positive out of 41,347 samples tested and 56 deaths were reported, he said.

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