Mumbai: After a gap of two days, the Covid-19 vaccination drive resumed in Mumbai on Tuesday morning, but unlike the first day, there were hardly any beneficiaries rushing to get their shot. On Day 2, the overall turnout was only 50 per cent in the city, with only 1,597 of 3,200 beneficiaries going to the vaccination centres on Tuesday. Civic officials have attributed this drop to the slow functioning of the Co-Win application, which manages the process. There was a similar problem on the eve of the nationwide mass immunisation launch.
The civic body has a target of inoculating 4,000 healthcare workers (HCWs) at the nine centres across the city, but it was learnt there was duplication of the names of 800 HCWs, which was deleted on Tuesday morning, resulting in the number of beneficiaries for the day dropping to 3,200. However, only 1,597 beneficiaries were vaccinated at the end of the day.
Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer, BMC, said because of the technical glitch in the CoWin vaccine, they were unable to send messages to the registered health workers through the system and were forced to call every individual HCW through war rooms last night.
"When we learnt that the SMSs did not reach people (through Co-WIN), we had to contact them through war rooms," she said. Moreover, the system also showed nearly 1,000 contacts, adding to their troubles.
According to data, the highest number - 307 HCWs -- were vaccinated at KEM hospital, followed by 285 at Rajawadi hospital, 236 at Babasaheb Ambedkar, 229 at RN Cooper, 110 at LTMG (Sion), 103 at BKC jumbo, 90 at Bhabha, 59 at VN Desai and 13 at JJ hospital.
The least number of HCWs - 13 - lined up for their shots at the state-run JJ Hospital, where the indigenously developed Covaxin from Bharat Biotech is being administered. On the inaugural day of the drive on January 16, only 39 of the scheduled 100 HCWs showed up at the centre.
Overall, on the first day of the drive last Saturday, only 1,923 of the targeted 4,000 HCWs came in to be vaccinated. The civic body had blamed the glitches in the CoWin app for the low turnout and put it on hold on Sunday and Monday.
On Tuesday morning, the drive got off to a slow start. Unlike Saturday, there was hardly any rush at the waiting areas of the vaccination centres. Beneficiaries kept showing up one or two at a time, after a few minutes.
Some healthcare workers from KEM hospital said they had received calls from the BMC's war rooms on Monday night, between 8.30pm and 11.30pm and no SMSs were sent to them. However, some of them said they received SMSs, early on Tuesday morning. “I had received a call on Monday night from the BMC, informing me about the vaccination centre and time I had to reach,” said Suman Singh Maurya, a beneficiary.
Only 13 HCWs turn up at JJ
There were only 13 beneficiaries who were inoculated at JJ Hospital, a Covaxin-administering centre, on Tuesday. This was because the hospital received an old list of beneficiary names instead of a fresh one. Officials attributed this to the massive glitch in the CoWin application, saying the app fails to identify repeat names as it generates the subsequent list.
Dr Lalit Sankhe, in-charge of the vaccine centre at JJ hospital said they were awaiting the new list beneficiaries through the CoWin app, but found out on Tuesday that the list was the same as that generated on January 16 and those named had already been vaccinated that day.
“The list we received had the same names as on Saturday. So, of the 61 shortlisted people who couldn't get vaccinated on Saturday, 13 were inoculated today,” he said.
