The ambitious plan rolled out by the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) to achieve 100 percent coverage of the first dose to teenagers falling under the 15 to 18 years age bracket within two days continues to remain a distant dream.
Two weeks after the drive took off on January 3, MBMC’s health department has so far managed to achieve a target of around 65 percent by vaccinating 34,581 out of the 52,992 eligible beneficiaries till January 15.
After witnessing a relatively encouraging response in the first five days, the speed of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign has been decreasing rapidly for the past one week. While 29,504 beneficiaries were vaccinated in the first five days, only 3,493 teens have been inoculated in the past five days.
The average daily doses administered has drastically come down from its peak at 85,791 vaccinations on January 4 to just 377 and 673 doses on 14 and 15 January respectively. In accordance with MBMC's outreach programme, several educational institutions including schools and junior colleges in the twin-city have doubled up as vaccination centers for the convenience of students. 18,539 out of the 34,581 teenagers were vaccinated in walk-ins at their respective school/college campuses. This in addition to 14,009 and 2,209 online and offline applicants at various health care facilities respectively. The health department has appealed to eligible beneficiaries to get themselves vaccinated at the earliest.
