After administering a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to more than 40,000 beneficiaries each day, Mumbai’s vaccination centres saw a slight drop in their footfall on Thursday. A total of 36,933 beneficiaries received their dose on Thursday. This includes 25,260 senior citizens above 60 years, 4,004 citizens between 45 years and 59 years with co-morbidities, 4,911 healthcare workers (HCWs) and 2,758 frontline workers (FLWs).
Before the start of the ongoing vaccination drive, BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had set up a daily target of vaccinating 50,000 beneficiaries daily. Seeing the high footfall daily, it has already written to the central government and requested permission to add 50 more private hospitals in the drive.
"We are already in the process of expanding our centres. Now that the footfall has increased, we will be adding more hospitals and nursing homes," said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, BMC. "After we reach the 50,000-mark, we will set up a target of vaccinating 75,000 beneficiaries daily. By the end of this month, hopefully, we will be able to vaccinate close to 1 lakh beneficiaries daily," Kakani added.
"The footfall is high mostly this week. Thursday was also a holiday so many people chose not to come. Maybe, that’s why the numbers dropped a bit," said a senior civic health official.
On Thursday, a total of 72 vaccination centres took part in the drive, which included 42 private hospitals and dispensaries, 24 civic-run hospitals and six state-run hospitals. However, glitch in the CoWin portal continued to bother the healthcare workers.
"The glitch is happening because a lot of users are using it at the same time, while also the process of online and offline registration is being done simultaneously," Kakani stated.
Dr Gautam Bhansali, consultant physician of Bombay Hospital and coordinator of private hospitals, said the entire vaccination process went hassle-free on Thursday as well.
Meanwhile, at the Bandra Kurla Complex vaccination centre, nearly 150 NSG commandos received the dose of vaccine on Thursday. Dr Rajesh Dere, incharge of the facility, said that the process went hassle-free and the beneficiaries applauded the BMC for such a smooth service.
Alongside this, total of 2,160 HCWs took the first dose and 2,751 HCWs took the second dose of the vaccine. Also total 1,150 FLWs took their first dose and 1,608 FLWs took the second dose of vaccine on Thursday. From Friday, five more hospitals will participate in the drive. This includes - state-run RCF hospital and three private hospitals (Karuna Hospital, Asian Heart Institute, Prince Ali Khan hospital and HICG Apex Cancer centre).
