Beneficiaries above 45 years of age will not be allowed to walk in at the vaccination centres from Friday who are willing to take first and second doses, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
The civic officials said for the next two days the beneficiaries have to book a slot through the CoWin portal then only they will get the jabs.
“For the next two days, all vaccine centres will administer 80 per cent of beneficiaries with the first dose and 20 per cent with the second dose of Covishield. Similarly, all centres will administer only second dose of Covaxin. However booking a slot through a portal is mandatory,” said a senior health official.
Meanwhile, less than 20,000 beneficiaries were vaccinated on Thursday at the Covid vaccination centres in the city for the second time in three days. According to the data, 19,361 beneficiaries were inoculated in the last 24 hours, of which 4,210 beneficiaries were between 18 to 44 years of age.
Suresh Kakani, Additional Municipal Commissioner said citizens need to book an appointment through the government portals for inoculation, but in some centres the vaccination was carried out on a walk-in basis and for those who had registered. “However, with the rising number of cases in the last week, more people started rushing for vaccination, but they were affected by the short supply of the doses being supplied by the two producers," he said.
Senior senior civic official said the 45-59 group was equally enthusiastic but the stockouts broke the momentum of the drive. Now, with the gap between two doses of Covishield extended to 12-16 weeks, there will be a further delay in complete vaccination.
The BMC data, however, shows a worrying trend of many healthcare workers having skipped the second dose. Although their drive was started on January 1, only 91% of the estimated 2 lakh have taken the first dose and 63 per cent the second dose. Similarly, while 2.3 lakh frontline workers have taken the first dose, less than 55 per cent have taken the second dose. “We think there is hesitancy in taking the second dose,” said Dr Mangala Gomare, BMC’s executive health officer.
