LAHORE: Amid reports of the fifth wave of the Covid-19 getting worse, the Punjab government is yet to fully vaccinate 60pc of the population of 25 districts of the province.

A disturbing official report has exposed the government’s lack of commitment to fight the Covid-19 where it appeared that Lahore, Faisalabad and Gujranwala are among the low performing districts in vaccination drive and the information left the local and foreign independent observers stunned.

The above mentioned three districts are among eight districts, which have been marked as the most vulnerable cities for reporting maximum number of the Covid-19 cases and deaths caused by the virus.

Particularly, Lahore stands at 29 in the list of 36 districts of the province by reporting 49pc complete vaccination ratio and Gujranwala at the 14th position with 58pc population vaccination ratio. Faisalabad district is at the last position of 36 districts where 42pc of the population has been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Total eight districts of the province have vaccinated their population below 50 years of age, according to the official data.

The National Command Operation Centre (NCOC) had given a target to immunise 81m people in Punjab but the official data itself speaks volumes of incompetence of the health authorities in this respect.

The health department had launched two special vaccination campaigns — Reach Every Door (RED) — in October and in December to achieve the target but failed to comply with the guidelines, causing embarrassment for the Punjab government.

Some officials warned that the citizens would have to pay the ‘cost’ of inefficiency of the health authorities as the infectivity rate of the Covid has increased to 7.5pc in Lahore, the highest one in the country after Karachi where the positivity rate was reported 15pc.

More such irritating reports are emerging that suggest that after a gap of about two months, the burden of Covid patients is increasing gradually on the state hospitals, ringing alarm bells in the provincial capital.

According to the official data, the high dependency units (UHUs) of the major government hospitals reported a 24pc bed occupancy ratio that had dropped to below 5pc two months back.

Likewise, the bed occupancy in the intensive care units (ICUs) of the hospitals designated for critical patients of the virus also increased to 14pc in the city.

The medical experts believe that the gradual increase in the bed occupancy ratio in the government hospitals of Lahore is largely going unchecked as nothing important has been done in the recent past to contain the new Covid wave, which is showing visible dominance of the Omicron variant in Punjab, particularly in Lahore.

The official data on Monday shows the maximum vaccination only in districts of Mianwali (76pc) and Jhelum (75pc) that have vaccinated above 70pc population against Covid in Punjab.

There are only nine districts of the province where more than 60pc of the population has been fully vaccinated for Covid-19.

Of them, Mandi Bahauddin has reported 67pc fully vaccinated population, Narowal 66pc, Bhakkar 65pc, Rawalpindi, Attock and Sargodha 64pc each, Multan and Lodharan 61pc each while Hafizabad district reported 60pc fully vaccinated population.

Seventeen other districts reported above 50pc vaccinated population include Toba Tek Singh, Chakwal and Gujranwala with 58pc population vaccinated in each of them, Gujrat 57pc, Nankana Sahib, Pakpattan, Layyah 56pc each, Vehari and Sialkot 55pc each, Sahiwal, Khanewal and Khushab 54pc each, Rahim Yar Khan 53pc, Okara and Dera Ghazi Khan 51pc each while Bahawalnagar reported 50pc vaccinated population.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2022