‘Mumbai will be fully vaccinated by December’

By the end of December, which is just 45 days away, Mumbai should be the first (globally comparable) city in the world to achieve 100% double dose vaccination of its eligible population, said the civic chief

Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, in an exclusive interview to HT, speaks of how the city reached the first-dose milestone. While expressing confidence that the city will be fully vaccinated by the end of the year, he also says the BMC is prepared for a third wave, if it comes. Excerpts:

Mumbai civic chief IS Chahl said the city has enough oxygen storage and manufacturing capacity and it has built four new jumbo facilities. (HT FILE)

Mumbai achieved the milestone of 100% vaccination of the first dose, for the target population of the city. Your thoughts?

I am very happy and proud of my team at BMC, who have excelled from Day One. We achieved 100% vaccination of eligible population, and we are the only city of a comparable size, in the country to achieve this milestone. Not only that, we have achieved 65% double dose vaccination also. We just have to vaccinate 3,30,000 more people. In the next 30-45 days, we can vaccinate the remaining population also. By the end of December, which is just 45 days away, we should be the first (globally comparable) city in the world to achieve 100% double dose vaccination of its eligible population. The results of our effort are already visible, as on Friday, we had only one Covid-related death in Mumbai, and today our positivity rate has gone down to 0.7%.

First and foremost, we are fully prepared for a third wave. We have enough oxygen storage and manufacturing capacity. We have also built four new jumbo facilities. We have already procured 5000 vials of monoclonal antibodies, which will be very important if a third wave comes. We have groomed thousands of doctors in the last four months.

But I have to say, based on what experts tell me: when we are 100% vaccinated even for the first dose, the gravity of infection greatly reduces. Out of 1.5 crore vaccination, only 16,000 were infected, which is negligible.

What interventions have helped Mumbai?

A very streamlined system. We were the first municipality who asked the health ministry to let private hospitals come on board. We were the first who said students travelling to foreign countries should be allowed to get the second dose of Covishield in 28 days. We were the first to get pregnant women vaccinated.

We continue to be the first and only city in India, to have a unique model - corporate houses, private hospitals, and BMC, signed an agreement, where 25% of the stocks of manufacturing companies like Serum Institute could be purchased by private hospitals. We asked corporates to fund private hospitals, who acquired the stock, and gave the vaccines to BMC. We pumped these vaccines to slum areas where we conducted free vaccination. It is unique to Mumbai, and we have achieved almost one million vaccinations like this. If we had not adopted this model, we would not be where we are now.

Due to some vaccine hesitancy, we went to celebrities like Salman Khan way back in July. He made a complimentary video for BMC, where he asked his 60 million followers to take the vaccine. Such videos went viral all over Mumbai. On August 15, when local trains started in Mumbai, we said only double vaccinated people could travel by train, or enter restaurants or shopping malls. This encouraged people to get vaccinated. Today, 6 million people travel by the local train, all double vaccinated. Thousands of people have taken the vaccine, not for Covid, but for a train pass, as their livelihood depends on it.