In Punjab, with COVID positivity rate hitting at 7.7 per cent in the last week, Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh today directed the health department to further increase the vaccination and target vaccination of 2 lakh patients per day Under the current vaccination drive about 90,000 people are being vaccinated per day. He also directed the officials to increase the sampling to 50,000 per day, besides vigorously pursuing contact tracing to 30 people per positive patient. The Chief Minister was Chairing the weekly COVID review meeting with officials of the Health Department and medical experts at Chandigarh today.<br />'' <br />''Expressing concern at the high CFR Case Fatality Rate (CFR) rate hitting 2 per cent last week, he said, many of the deaths are avoidable with timely treatment. He directed Chief Secretary, Vini Mahajan, to undertake a massive public awareness campaign to motivate people to approach hospitals at early stages. He also asked the Chief Secretary to address the issue of vaccination hesitancy by undertaking well designed media campaigns. <br />''<br />''<br />''He said the quality of health care in hospitals also needs to be improved and the list of approved hospitals with required facilities should be put out in the public domain. He said, death audits should be done by all districts and private facilities which are not participating in the expert group discussions should be encouraged to do so.<br />'' <br />''Chief Minister, who was informed by the health department that PGI was refusing to admit patients from Punjab, despite being referred through proper channels, said that he would take up the matter with the Prime Minister at tomorrow's video conferencing meeting and would request him to direct the hospital to reserve at least 50 ICU beds for patients referred by the state government.<br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">He again urged the union government for relaxation in the age criteria for vaccinating people under the age of 45 years in areas showing weekly doubling of positivity rate. He reiterated his demand that the union government should allow vaccinations to all potential super-spreaders – students above 18 years, teachers, councillors, sarpanches etc.</span><br />