12 February,2021 07:23 AM IST | Mumbai | A Correspondent
A fire brigade official receives the vaccine at Nair hospital. Pic/Ashish Raje
On Thursday, the city crossed the milestone of vaccinating over one lakh people, including health and frontline workers, with the COVID-19 vaccine. Despite technical glitches and dull response, the city has crossed the mark within a month. The beneficiaries including 85,000 health workers and 16,000 frontline workers. On Thursday, the turnout for the vaccine was 61 per cent, with the turnout of health workers having reduced further.
The vaccination drive started on January 16 and faced technical glitches initially. Now, the municipal corporation does online and physical verification. Though the system is largely on track, response from remains low. On Thursday, the expected number of beneficiaries was 9,375. Of those vaccinated, 1,989 were healthcare workers and 3,718 were frontline workers, including BMC employees. Also, 106 experienced mild symptoms like giddiness and were kept for observation for 30 minutes.
No one needed hospitalisation. Meanwhile, the corporation increased the number of centres and teams for vaccination and started the procedure to incorporate private hospitals as vaccination centres.
There are 1.6 lakh healthcare workers and 1.9 lakh frontline workers registered with the BMC. Around one lakh BMC employees are registered as frontline workers.
