E-Paper
Rural Maharashtra is ahead in inoculation of teenagers than urban areas
Mumbai: Even though the Covid-19 cases have dropped significantly across the state, teenagers living in the rural areas have responded better to the vaccination drives than those living in the urban pockets
Mumbai: Even though the Covid-19 cases have dropped significantly across the state, teenagers living in the rural areas have responded better to the vaccination drives than those living in the urban pockets. Districts like Bhandara, Palghar, and Gondia are ahead in the inoculation among the youth, compared to the cities.
According to a presentation submitted before the state cabinet on Thursday, against the state percentage of 62.04% for the inoculation of the youth with first doses, cities like Mumbai, Thane lag behind with 55.07% and 59.65%.
Bhandara leads the chart with 71.46%, followed by Palghar at 76.51%, Sangli at 75.79%, and Kolhapur at 75.15%. Similarly, the age group has reported 39.59% of beneficiaries to have been vaccinated for their second doses, though the percentage in districts like Bhandara (66.04), Palghar (51.41), Gondia (46.73%) is higher than the state average.
The vaccination rate among children in the 12-15 age group, too, is low in Mumbai (6.66), Thane (20.06), and Pune (30.91) against the state average of 30.75% as of March 30. Maharashtra has 6.3 million targeted beneficiaries in the age group 15-18 and 3.9 million in the age group 12-15.
“The vaccination rate among the youngsters in cities and urban areas is low maybe because of the anti-vax movement awareness among them. In most rural areas, the vaccination so far was directly linked with government schemes. The high percentage of vaccination in some of the districts is also attributed to extra mile efforts by the administrations. The lifting of curbs and the no holds barred celebrations of religious festivals like Gudi Padwas leads to complacency among people leading to further drop in the vaccination rate,” said an official from the health department.
Dr Sachin Desai, a state vaccination officer, said that the vaccination rate among youngsters and children is low because of the exam season. “We have asked the district administrations to speed up the rate by taking special drives. The rate had dropped because of the exam season. The low rate in cities and urban areas is mostly because of the exams. We expect it to go up in the next few weeks. I think the overall vaccination rate should also improve after the lifting of the curbs, as the people are likely to go for the vaccination protection amid increased crowding at the public places,” he said.
Meanwhile, the state continued its downward trend of daily caseload over the last six weeks. From 2831 cases on February 15; 782 on February 27; 207 on March 15, the state reported 119 cases on March 30. The daily test positivity rate dropped to 0.31% on March 30 from 0.57% on March 11. It was 0.40 on Saturday after the state conducted 32,707tests.
The state reported 130 new cases and two deaths on Saturday taking the case tally to 7874277 and the death toll to 147787. Mumbai logged 49 new cases taking the overall case tally to 1057154. No death has been reported on Saturday and the toll tally stood at 19,559. There are 937 active patients in the state, including 290 in Mumbai.
With 10,200 tests carried out in the past 24 hours, the daily Test Positivity Rate (TPR) in Mumbai stood at 0.48 percent. As of Saturday, there are 290 active cases in Mumbai and the rate of hospitalisation is 0.05 percent. Also, out of the 49 fresh infections, 48 (98 percent) patients were asymptomatic.
The recovery rate in Mumbai is 98 percent and a total of 33 patients had recovered and were discharged in the past 24 hours.
