Long queues outside civic-run vaccination centres in Mumbai

Around 10 days before the Covid-19 vaccination opens up for all above the age of 18 years, long queues were witnessed outside government and civic-run vaccination centres

Around 10 days before the Covid-19 vaccination opens up for all above the age of 18 years, long queues were witnessed outside government and civic-run vaccination centres. The burden on government vaccination centres has increased as there are frequent closures of vaccination centres and many private hospitals have discontinued vaccination owing to shortage of stock.

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On Thursday, 48 private vaccination centres were shut owing to shortage of vaccine doses. As a result, long queues were seen outside civic-run vaccination centres. The scene was the same on Wednesday when around 40 of the total 129 vaccination centres could not carry out vaccination. Several jumbo centres like Dahisar Jumbo Centre, NESCO and civic hospitals in the city are witnessing long queues for vaccination.

The daily number of people being vaccinated has come down to 25,000 to 40,000 from 50,000 to 60,000 about two weeks ago.

Ashish Mhatre, a Dahisar resident said, “I had gone to Dahisar Jumbo Centre for vaccination, but there was a long queue and no social distancing was followed. I will now register and go at a later stage after taking a prior appointment.”

The BMC on the other hand aims to have 500 vaccination centres in the city in the coming months, as vaccination for everyone above 18 years of age starts from May 1, 2021. As of Wednesday morning, the BMC had around 180,000 vaccines in stock that may go down to around 100,000 by Friday morning. On Thursday, 48,152 citizens were vaccinated of which 21,762 were senior citizens above the age of 60, 22,104 were between the age group of 45 to 60, 1,491 were health care workers and 2,795 were front line workers. Overall, 2,128,095 of citizens have been vaccinated in the city, so far. Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner, said, “We have been getting vaccine doses from the Centre, but they are not in bulk.” The BMC has a storage capacity of stocking around 12 million vaccine doses at the central vaccine storage facility in Kanjurmarg, and the same is expected to be utilised starting May 1.

Meanwhile, Dr Siddarth Paliwal, city-based physician said, “The crowding in the form of long queues outside civic vaccination centres will only prove dangerous considering the virus is mutating and its new variants are spreading faster. In all this, the long queues outside vaccination centres only add to the spread.”