Mumbai: COVID vaccination drive grinds to a halt

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 120odd vaccination centres in the city 86 were nonoperational Further the BMC has decided that it will conduct the vaccination drive on Saturday and Sunday only at government and civicrun centresA guard writes information about the closing of the vaccination centre at Nair hospital on Friday PicSuresh KarkeraEven as civic officials on Thursday claimed that there are about 50000 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 COVID19 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 inldquoUntil we receive more vaccines we wonrsquot be able to supply any stock to private hospitals that are carrying out the vaccination driverdquo said the BMC in an official statement The civic body was expected to receive around 99000 doses on Friday night which would make it possible to continue the drive in civic and governmentrun 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 groundsThe 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 stockldquoCollectively on an average 40000 to 50000 people are vaccinated every day in BMCrsquos jurisdiction However due to the insufficient supply of the vaccine the drive wonrsquot 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 centresrdquo said a civic officialOn Friday the turnout of senior citizens those aged 45 and above and health and frontline workers was 33551 A total of 1614278 have been vaccinated so far of which 182308 have been fully vaccinated On Friday the turnout of senior citizens was 6983 of those aged 45 and above was 23228 that of healthcare workers was 724 and of frontline workers was 2616 BMC officials said that the figures are if Thursdayrsquos second shift and Fridayrsquos first shift