Mumbai: COVID vaccination drive grinds to a halt

A crowd seen outside the NESCO Jumbo COVID Centre in Goregaon, which has a vaccination facility. Pic/Anurag Ahire

Chaos broke out in the city on Friday morning after a majority of COVID vaccination centres ran out of stock and beneficiaries waited at the gates. Of the 120-odd vaccination centres in the city, 86 were non-operational. Further, the BMC has decided that it will conduct the vaccination drive on Saturday and Sunday only at government and civic-run centres.

A guard writes information about the closing of the vaccination centre at Nair hospital on Friday. Pic/Suresh Karkera

Even as civic officials on Thursday claimed that there are about 50,000 doses available, the scene on Friday morning was quite different. With the drive suspended at 86 centres, citizens panicked as many had turned up at the centres and had to return. This is not helping the situation, already made grim by the daily increase in COVID-19 cases. Where the BMC at one point had wanted one lakh citizens to come forward to get vaccinated, now there is hardly any stock coming in.

"Until we receive more vaccines, we won't be able to supply any stock to private hospitals that are carrying out the vaccination drive," said the BMC in an official statement. The civic body was expected to receive around 99,000 doses on Friday night, which would make it possible to continue the drive in civic and government-run hospitals on Saturday and Sunday. Private centres, however, will be shut for three days from Saturday to Monday. On Saturday, the drive will start at 12 and end at 6 pm and on Sunday, it will start at 9 am and end at 5 pm in municipal and government hospitals. Although there is a weekend curfew, citizens will be allowed to go out to get vaccinated on medical grounds.

The BMC has set up 49 vaccination centres in Mumbai and 71 are in private hospitals. Now, only 49 of the civic and state centres will be operational, including at KEM Hospital, Nair hospital, Rajawadi hospital, Mahim Maternity Hospital and BKC Jumbo COVID Centre. Out of the 49 civic and state centres, 33 were out of stock on Friday, and 53 out of 71 private centres were out of stock.

"Collectively, on an average, 40,000 to 50,000 people are vaccinated every day in BMC's jurisdiction. However, due to the insufficient supply of the vaccine, the drive won't be conducted at private hospitals. When enough stock becomes available, operations will resume. But private centres that have stock left may continue the drive. However, no new stock will be given to them as the priority right now is civic and state centres," said a civic official.

On Friday, the turnout of senior citizens, those aged 45 and above and health and frontline workers was 33,551. A total of 16,14,278 have been vaccinated so far, of which 1,82,308 have been fully vaccinated. On Friday, the turnout of senior citizens was 6,983, of those aged 45 and above was 23,228, that of healthcare workers was 724 and of frontline workers was 2,616. BMC officials said that the figures are if Thursday's second shift and Friday's first shift.