Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Tuesday set up a task force headed by Chief Secretary Sanjay Kumar to ensure effective production and distribution of Covid-19 vaccine, prioritise its distribution and determine the price and quantity.
The task force is also expected to look at the cold chain infrastructure for vaccine storage and the distribution system. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray disclosed this at the video conference chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was accompanied by Home Minister Amit Shah.
“A taskforce has been set up to manage distribution and vaccination in Maharashtra. The government is in constant touch with Adar Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India to track development of the coronavirus vaccine,’’ said Thackeray. The taskforce comprises secretaries of the departments of planning, public health and medical education, the health services commissioner, the medical education director, representatives of JJ and KEM hospitals and Dr Shashank Joshi, member of the state's Covid taskforce. Two days ago, Thackeray had informed that the vaccine would have to be administered in two doses to every recipient.
Thackeray also listed out various steps taken to curb the spread of coronavirus in the state. He said the implementation of the 'My Family, My Responsibility' campaign has helped the state government mobilise the health data of 11.92 crores of people and act in the case of those detected positive.
Wants parties to refrain from politics in Covid crisis: Amid the BJP staging agitations on each and every issue to corner the Maha Vikas Aghadi government, Thackeray urged PM Modi and HM Shah to convene a meeting of all political parties and ask them refrain from politics by hitting the road under the garb of protests, as this could exacerbate the spread of the infection.
‘’When the state government has stepped up efforts to combat the virus by appealing to people to wear masks and keep social distancing, political parties (without naming the BJP) are bent on politicking, by staging protests on the roads. This may foil all efforts and thereby enable the second wave,’’ said Thackeray.
The BJP was on Thackeray’s radar as the party has recently protested the state government’s inability to provide relief to the farmers hit by untimely rains and on Monday, there was an agitation on the ruling MVA government's turnaround over providing relief to the electricity consumers who had received inflated power bills. Before this, the BJP had staged a statewide 'ghanta-naad' agitation to press for the reopening of temples, which ultimately happened on November 16.
Thackeray expressed his anger at the manner in which people, including party leaders, were gathering at public places, flouting all Covid-19 norms.
He also brought to PM Modi’s notice that the state had been conducting 80,000 tests daily and the administration had been asked to increase the number of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.
The Union Health Secretary admitted that the number of corona patients in Maharashtra had declined in the last two weeks and the state is now at the bottom of the list of eight states. Delhi has seen a 100 per cent increase in the number of patients per day, Haryana, 53 per cent and West Bengal, 8 per cent. In comparison, Gujarat has seen a 14 per cent decline in cases, Kerala, 28 per cent, Chhattisgarh, 50 per cent and Maharashtra, 76 per cent.
