Vaccination for 18-plus unlikely to begin today in Gurgaon

Gurgaon: The city is yet to receive Covid-19 vaccine doses for the 18-plus population. Under the present circumstances, Gurgaon won’t be able to start vaccination camps from Saturday. The city has around 3,000 vaccine doses left, which are being saved for second dose recipients.
Overall, 10 lakh people in Gurgaon will be eligible for getting the jabs from Saturday. “We are expecting vaccine doses to arrive by Saturday evening, and thus session sites will not go live on that day,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurgaon.
He also said private hospitals will conduct session sites on their own. “We have told all private hospitals to raise vaccine requests on their own. We are not going to provide them doses,” he added.
In the upcoming phase, walk-ins won’t be allowed. Only those registered on the Co-WIN portal will be able to get vaccinated.
At present, however, people can register on the portal but can’t book an appointment as session sites haven’t been uploaded yet.
“What’s the use of getting registered when the government doesn’t have the vaccine? When we are getting so many cases daily, efforts should be made to increase svaccinations,” said Ashim Gupta, a resident of Sector 14.
Several recipients said they are unable to even get their second dose. “I have been trying to get an appointment for my second dose. I even visited several hospitals, but had no luck,” said Swati Kapoor, a resident of Sector 54.
Experts were also of the opinion that the government should ramp up the drive at present. Dr Arunesh Kumar, head of department at Paras Chest Institute and senior pulmonologist at Paras Hospital, said: “With the increase in the number of Covid cases, it was expected that we would ramp up the vaccination drive. Unfortunately, the drive has slowed down. The government needs to ensure the availability of vaccines.”