RANCHI: Hitting out at the Centre, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said on Monday that the state was facing a severe shortage of COVID vaccines and has barely two-three days of shots left in its stock.
Chairing a cabinet meeting, Soren said the Centre failed to alert states and take necessary measures even as it had prior knowledge of the second wave of the pandemic.
"Government of India knew about the (second wave of the) infection but there was much delay in directions to the states and ultimately the entire country was impacted by it," he said.
"We were suggested that there should not be any lockdown in the country but given the rate of infections, the state governments started taking their own decisions. Today there are partial or complete lockdowns (in every state)," he added.
The chief minister said that Jharkhand got barely 40 lakh doses of vaccines against a requirement of 4 crore doses, leading to the shortage.
However, the state government would make serious efforts to procure vaccines, including through imports, he said.
Soren said the state government would soon make a decision on extending the lockdown as 23 of its 24 districts share borders with either Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh or Chattisgarh, which are severely affected.
Every day about 20,000 people are coming to the state through the railways and to combat the spread, Jharkhand has decided to intensify testing in rural areas on a war footing, Soren said.
In urban areas, he said, the chain of the virus has been broken and fresh cases have reduced drastically to around 2,000 from earlier 15,000-20,000 a day.
"As far as death rates are concerned, we are the top in the country. UP and Bihar are reporting fewer deaths but you can assess if it is true. Many states are manipulating data but it is the priority of our government that we will ensure full transparency and take all possible steps to contain the virus," Soren said.
"Till the time a single death takes place in the state, we will consider it as peak," he said.