The East Singhbhum district health department carried out a dry run for Covid vaccinations at two health hubs on Saturday, days after a dozen-odd people staying a hotel here tested positive for the coronavirus.

In all, 50 health workers were involved in the dry run at Sadar Hospital at Khasmahal and at the Ghatshila sub-divisional hospital. The session, carried out in accordance with the Union health ministry guidelines, began at 9 am and continued till 12.30pm in the presence of district civil surgeon R.N. Jha and district chief medical officer Sahir Pal at the respective hospitals.

"We carried out a dry run on 25 beneficiaries at Sadar Hospital in Jamshedpur and as many beneficiaries at the government hospital in Ghatshila. All those subjected to the dry run were the health department workers. We gathered information about the persons to be immunised, fed in other details, verified documents and uploaded the data in the Co-win app," said the district civil surgeon.

After that, Jha said, the vaccination was conducted. The practise session was a success, he added.

As on Friday night, the number of Coronavirus cases in the East Singhbhum district stood at 17,628 of which 228 were active cases.

On Thursday night, 11 foreigners, staying at the Fortune Park Centre Point at Bistupur, tested positive for the virus, in addition to a hotel staffer. This prompted the district administration to quarantine all of them in the hotel.

"We have instructed all the 12 persons to remain in quarantine at the hotel for the next 10 days. At the end of the ten days, we will collect blood or swab samples of all of them for testing to find out if they had contracted the new variant of the virus," said medical officer Pal, who is also district surveillance officer.