Despite July hiccups in Mumbai’s vaccination drive, double the jabs given

Although the city’s Covid-19 vaccination drive was hit thrice since July 1 due to shortage of doses, the number of citizens vaccinated doubled in the first 10 days of July, when compared to June, according to civic body data.

Although the city’s Covid-19 vaccination drive was hit thrice since July 1 due to shortage of doses, the number of citizens vaccinated doubled in the first 10 days of July, when compared to June, according to civic body data. Around 113,000 citizens were vaccinated in 243 civic centres between June 1 and 10. In the same period in July, the number of vaccinations increased to 238,000, across 281 civic centres.

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Further, in terms of vaccination across all 401 vaccination centres, which includes civic, state and private, the number is 539,568 between June 1 and 10, which increased marginally to 541,220 in the same period in July.

According to BMC officials, along with the increase in number of vaccination centres, the supply has also increased due to which more vaccinations were possible.

One indicator of increased supply is the supply of 688,470 vaccine doses to BMC in June 2021, up from the 523,440 in May. However, the demand is surplus to that of supply and hence we are seeing the vaccination drive being suspended despite more citizens getting vaccinated.

In the past month, overall vaccination centres have increased from 342 in June to 401 in July. In terms of civic centres, they have increased from 243 in June first week to 281 in July first week.

Of the 6,009,025 citizens vaccinated in the city, 42% vaccination was done at private hospitals. The maximum load was handled by civic vaccination centres.

Further, between June 1 and 10, 453,455 citizens were vaccinated at private hospitals that went down to 282,991 in the same period during July as supply seems to have relatively improved at civic centres.

Meanwhile, as vaccination resumed in the city on Monday with few centres seeing high footfalls for walk-in vaccinations resulting in crowding.

There were long queues reported for walk-in vaccinations at BKC, Bhandup, Kandivli area. According to civic officials, the footfall probably increased as there is already a piled-up demand owing to vaccinations remaining shut since three days due to shortage of doses.

Dr Mangala Gomare, chief of BMC’s public health department, said, “The increased vaccination is because of increase in supply. We got around 240,000 vaccine doses in July till now and it looks like it is little better than June. However, there is still time to conclude that July has better supply than June.”

Dr Gomare added, “Our vaccination is also increasing because we are not keeping vaccine doses in reserve by stocking them. Instead, we are administering them as we are getting them. Our capacity is to easily vaccinate 100,000 citizens daily with help of state government vaccination centres, provided we have that sort of supply.”

Further, the BMC is expecting fresh stock of vaccine doses on Monday night and owing to this, the drive is unlikely to be suspended for now. On Monday, 106,904 citizens were vaccinated in the city. Until now, a total of 6,115,929 citizens have been vaccinated in the city with at least one dose.

On Tuesday, the vaccination drive will continue at civic and state vaccination centres with 50:50 ratio, wherein 50% of slots will be given for walk-ins and remaining for online booking.