Covid-19 vaccination drive: 3 mn Mumbaiites will qualify for phase 3, says BMC
Depending on whether the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) does registrations on the centralised Cowin app or citizens themselves do it, it will take 15 days or longer for registration to be completed
Close to three million Mumbaiites will qualify for phase three of the Covid-19 vaccination drive (meant for senior citizens and those with co-morbidities), the civic body’s door-to-door surveys for its My Family, My Responsibility drive have revealed.
Depending on whether the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) does registrations on the centralised Cowin app or citizens themselves do it, it will take 15 days or longer for registration to be completed. So far, the BMC has vaccinated 82,884 healthcare and frontline workers. Vaccination of frontline workers, that is part of phase two of the drive, was started in Mumbai last Thursday, alongside the ongoing phase one of the drive. The second dose for beneficiaries of phase one will start from February 13, which marks 28 days from the time the drive started on January 16.
The BMC on Monday vaccinated 7,133 beneficiaries and recorded a turnout of 83%. Among these, 4,502 were healthcare workers and 2,631 were frontline workers.
Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner of the municipal public health department, said on Sunday, “So far we have information about so many people who will qualify as beneficiaries in the third phase, as per data collected by the municipal corporation in the My Family, My Responsibility drive. However, we will have to see if all these people have the necessary documentation to register on the app, such as Aadhaar Card.”
Local governments are still awaiting the Central government’s decision about whether to merge electoral data for phase three of the drive. If government bodies are allowed to register citizens for phase three, Mumbai will complete registration of these beneficiaries within 15 days. However, if citizens themselves are required to register on the Cowin app, it will take longer, according to BMC.
Vaccination has now started across 21 centres in the city — King Edward Memorial Hospital, BYL Nair Hospital, Cooper hospital and Sion Hospital, Bhabha at Bandra, V N Desai at Santacruz, Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar and Bharat Ratna Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar hospital, Kandivali; the Covid facility at Bandra Kurla Complex, at NESCO at Goregaon, and at Dahisar, the state-run JJ Hospital in South Mumbai, the SevenHills hospital in Andheri, Maa hospital, Kasturba Hospital, Centenary Govandi Hospital, S.K. Hospital, BARC hospital, MW Desai hospital, Bhagwati Hospital, and VD Savarkar hospital.
Mumbai on Monday recorded 399 new Covid-19 cases, and three deaths due to the infection, taking the total cases in the city to 312,280, and the toll to 11,395, with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.6%. Mumbai, presently, has 5,338 active cases, and a recovery rate of 94%. The doubling rate of cases in the city is 574 days, at a growth rate of 0.12%.