On January 19, Pravin Singh, a freelance journalist in eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Mau district, was baffled after he received a text message from the Health Department saying that his father Kailash Nath Singh had received his second dose of Covishield vaccine.
Mr. Singh’s father died nine months ago from heart disease, on April 29, 2021. He had received only one dose of the vaccine, on March 15, 2021. “Fully vaccinated,” read the vaccination certificate Mr. Singh downloaded for his father.
The vaccination certificate further says he was vaccinated by staff member Meera Devi at the New Primary Health Centre in Madhuban. The SMS received by Mr. Singh said his father had been vaccinated with the second dose at 5:39 p.m. on January 19. Mr. Singh suspects foul play blaming overzealous government officials out to complete vaccination goals.
“This is a game of making records,” Mr. Singh said over phone.
Technical error
Dr. B.K. Yadav, vaccination in-charge, Mau, said the case would be probed whether it was an error or a deliberate act.
“We are checking under what circumstances, his phone number was acquired and how the second dose of vaccination was done on that number,” he said. Mr. Yadav said prima facie it appeared to be a technical error, possibly due to the submission of a wrong digit of a phone number and failure of the verification staff.
“As of now, it appears to be such type of an error,” Mr. Yadav said, while stressing that the matter would still be probed. The State government, meanwhile, said that over the past 24 hours, 26 lakh doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered, including 3.81 lakh doses for those between 15-17 years. Over 24.29 crore doses have been administered in the State, the government said. While 14.22 crore first doses (96.47% of their population) had been administered to those above 18 years, 9.29 crore second doses had been administered to those in the same age group, making it 63.06% of the population, the government said.
