Valley districts with more caseload see low vaccination
Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, May 2: As the vaccination campaign against the COVID-19 went on, the people appeared to have come out of the vaccine hesitancy phase, stepping towards acceptance as the majority of the vaccination sites in Srinagar and elsewhere remained occupied by people of different age groups.
Earlier, the Government had to press the need for vaccination through various mediums; however, there was a sense of insecurity among the masses, but, as of now, the situation on the ground seems to have changed drastically in Kashmir.
A rush of people was witnessed at several vaccination sites in Srinagar today where the people were coming in for walk-in vaccination. Keeping in view the increased rush of people, those intending to get vaccinated were asked to visit other vaccination sites in the area.
Coronavirus | Hundreds miss second dose as stocks out in Kashmir
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Hospitals call on police to control restive crowds
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Syringes filled with COVISHIELD vaccine for COVID-19 lie on ice box at a primary health center in Srinagar on April 28,2021.
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AP
Hospitals call on police to control restive crowds
Hundreds of beneficiaries above the age of 45, who had registered for vaccinations were turned away from health centres and hospitals in the Kashmir Valley on Thursday because of a shortage of vaccines.
The number of COVID cases meanwhile continued to rise in the UT. An official said 3,474 people tested positive in the past 24 hours and 26 people had died due to the infection. The active cases in J&K have swelled to over 26,000.
General physician Parvaiz Sajad Shah examines a patient at the Bandipora district hospital | Picture credit: Athar Parvaiz
On a chilly November morning, 54-year-old Arsheeda Akhtar lay under a thick blanket at Srinagar’s Khyber Hospital, waiting patiently for her dialysis session to end. She has been under dialysis for the last five years. Her family, most of whom are labourers, have already spent a lot of money on the treatment.
Under the Ayushman Bharat programme, a government health assurance scheme for low income groups, Akhtar was entitled to free dialysis at the hospital. But since March 2020, her Ayushman Bharat golden card stands cancelled due to “fraud”. The family is now struggling to find the money.
Around 1100 health workers in Kashmir contracted the infection, fought it and recovered, unlike the five doctors who died. Preoccupied with managing Covid-19 and the crisis the lockdown created by delaying interventions, these frontline warriors are still too busy to tell their stories of pain, loss and hope.
Farzana Nisar
Dr Naveed Bashir Runiyal who died of Covid-19
It was July 2, 2020, and as the light of dawn seeped into his room, Dr Mir Mushtaq rubbed his bleary eyes and got up. He felt a slight body ache and mild fever, which he initially thought of as a normal illness. But when the symptoms continued to worsen even after taking the requisite medication, Dr Mir rushed for a chest X-ray, and the findings revealed some complications. He then immediately got his RT-PCR, a real-time test done and expectedly tested positive for Covid-19, a viral infection that has killed almost 1.5 million people across the world.