Pune Municipal Corporation is presently focusing on vaccinating healthcare workers, who are more prone to infection while treatment of patients. (File Photo by Ashish Kale) THE PCMC inoculated 445 senior citizens and co-morbid people aged between 45 and 60 on the first day of the third phase of the Covid-19 vaccination drive, at Pimpri-Chinchwad on Monday. The drive, however, was slow and hit by technical glitches and many were forced to return home without being vaccinated.
The PCMC, however, could not provide a bifurcation for beneficiaries. “There were problems in the server as too many people tried to register. Of eight centres, three could start only late in the day,” Dr Salve said.
He added that since it was the first day, there were issues in CoWIN, but in days to come things should settle down.
Pimpri-Chinchwad also registered 95 per cent recovery rate on the day, which is higher than the state’s 94.14 per cent. In fact, Pimpri-Chinchwad has crossed the one-lakh recovery mark.
Dr Salve said Pimpri-Chinchwad reported 1,00,684 recoveries by Sunday evening. “Since March last year, we have seen 1,05,957 people testing Covid positive. Of these, over one lakh have recovered. This gives us a recovery rate of 95 per cent,” he said.
At Jijamata hospital, Dr Balasaheb Hodgar said they had vaccinated 114 citizens by 4.30 pm. “On the first day, we provided walk-in registration too as some could not register themselves due to a heavy load on the server,” he said.
Dr Hodgar said none of the beneficiaries complained of feeling unwell or fever. At 4.30 pm, when the system failed at Jijamata, at least 15 to 20 people in the queue had to return home without the shot.
At civic-run Chinchwad hospital, only 11 could get the shot. “Our system could start only by 4.30 pm. We could carry out 11 vaccinations,” said Dr Sunil John, incharge at the hospital.
Dr John added, “There are three stages in the process. First is registration, second is verification and the third is vaccination. After people managed to register themselves, the verification process could not be carried out as the system remained stuck.”
He said the server probably suffered because too many people must have tried to register themselves at the same time.
Dr Salve said they hoped the system will function smoothly in next two three days and they would be able to carry out maximum vaccination.