Chief Minister Conrad Sangma today said the State will take vaccination campaign on a mission mode and was optimistic that all the eligible population will be vaccinated by end of September or early October.
The Chief Minister, who participated in a virtual summit of all Northeast CMs chaired by the Prime Minister to dwell on the status of Covid management, said that the discussion dwelt at length on the progress of the vaccination campaign in the various states.
In a video message following the meeting, he admitted Meghalaya’s current poor performance which is below the national average. However, he said, “We are on the job to improve this and if we can achieve a target of 20 to 25 thousand doses per day, we should be able to complete the vaccination process by end of September or even early October.”
Informing that the government has asked the MLAs, MDCs and also the civil society leaders and religious leaders to help and contribute towards enhancing the vaccination drive he said, “We are very hopeful that we will see the rates of vaccination go up even higher in the coming weeks and months.”
Sangma said Meghalaya felt the delay in the onset of the 2nd wave when compared to the rest of the country was a blessing in disguise. “We got to prepare the required infra, augment oxygen generation capacity and others in advance,” he said, adding, “Though the graph is plateauing down, it’s not at the rate we anticipated because of the scattered population. In the dense areas cases go up but also come down fast but in rural areas, the cases increase slowly and come down slowly, so it is a matter of concern.”
Sangma also revealed that so far the Centre has given free of cost the vaccination, sanctioned 14 oxygen plants, oxygen cylinders, concentrators and other allied requirements to Meghalaya. He said the PM on his part urged all states to step up measures to increase the vax coverage in their respective states. Quoting the PM he said, “The PM impressed upon all of us that vaccination is the only way out of this pandemic in the long run.”
