PUNE: Complete vaccination of healthcare and frontline workers in Maharashtra against Covid still hovers around 90% despite the state striving to further speed up inoculation following the emergence of the new Omicron variant.
The state’s target was to vaccinate all adult beneficiaries with the first dose and those who had skipped the second shot by December 31. Maharashtra, though, still yet to vaccinate 100% beneficiaries in the healthcare and frontline worker categories, with whom the inoculation programme had started.
Maharashtra on Tuesday crossed the 120 million (12.02 crore) Covid vaccine dose mark. Official records till December 5 (Sunday) revealed 4.4 crore people have so far received both doses of the Covid vaccine.
As many as 17 districts continued to lag in terms of vaccinating health workers. In the frontline worker category, 19 districts were behind the state average.
The lowest complete vaccination among health workers has been registered in Jalna (79.4%), followed by Aurangabad (82.5%) and Sindhudurg (82.9%). Among frontline workers, the lowest vaccination is registered in Gondia (79.6%), followed by Jalna (82.1%) and Osmanabad (83.1%).
A senior government official attributed the trend to the possibility of many frontline workers taking their second dose in the general category. “It’s been 10 months since vaccination started. There is no other possible reason other than vaccine hesitancy,” the official said.
