Mumbai civic body ward offices abuzz with Covid-19 vaccine enquiries

Civic officials had a busy day throughout Tuesday as the phones at the ward offices were buzzing with queries about vaccination. Officials said there has been a growing awareness among the general public about the vaccine and the turnout of the beneficiaries will improve gradually.

Officials said the number of enquiries on the helpline numbers of the 24 ward offices has increased after January 16, the first day of the vaccination drive, with each office recording around 50 such calls since then.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday – Day-2 of the vaccination drive – the turnout of beneficiaries at the 10 vaccine centres stood below 50%. But civic officials said this was expected as there are several speculations over the new vaccines.

“There is a growing eagerness among the general public about the vaccine. Most of the callers seek information on when they will be called for the vaccination,” said Dr Mangala Gomare, executive health officer, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). “So we believe that with the growing awareness and trust among citizens, the turnout of the beneficiaries will increase,” she added.

Meanwhile, owing to the technical glitch on CoWIN app, BMC has directed its ward offices to call 4,000 beneficiaries who will be vaccinated daily. “The names of the beneficiaries are automatically generated by the app. Then we send the list to the ward offices to call the beneficiaries. So if anyone doesn’t get the message from the app, they are being informed individually through calls,” Dr Gomare added.

BMC is also providing its list of potential beneficiaries to the state-run Sir JJ Hospital, which is administering Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. “Most of the centres, including ours, are getting the list of in-house healthcare workers. We have over 4,000 registered healthcare workers,” said Dr Sanjay Surase, medical superintendent of the hospital.