Mumbai’s Covid-19 Vaccination Plan

On May 1, several Mumbaikars woke up to the news that the city’s municipal corporation has opened vaccination at five centres for people between the age group of 18-44 but with limited stocks.

“Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has received a limited vaccine stock and first dose vaccination for 18-44 age group will be conducted between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. today”, India's richest civic body tweeted late at night on April 30.

This came as a surprise since just two days ago on April 29, due to the lack of adequate supply of vaccines, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had halted vaccination for people aged 45 and above for three days and had also mentioned that the planned vaccination (on May 1) for 18 and above age group will get delayed.

Just like several other cities in the country, the financial capital is also facing an acute shortage of vaccines. Social media is full of first-person accounts of people detailing their ordeal -- waiting in queues for a long duration only to be asked to return as the centre was out of vaccines.

Mumbai has 141 active Covid Vaccination Centres, as per data shared by BMC on April 29. Of these, 50 CVCs are managed by BMC, 18 by the state and the remaining 73 by the central government and private entities.

So far BMC has administered 22,67,913 doses of Covishield (1 and 2 dose) and 1,60,713 (1 and 2 does) of Covaxin as of April 29. On April 28, 64,769 people were vaccinated in Mumbai, the municipal corporation tweeted.

Plans for Vaccinating 18-44 Age Group People

Ashwini Bhide, additional municipal commissioner of BMC recently tweeted that “even when the new drive for 18-44 year age group starts, the centres available now will continue to remain active for 45 years old and above citizens. BMC will add at least 500 more public and private CVCs for a new drive. So vaccination for 45 and above category shall not be compromised or slowed down.”

Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, recently shared BMC’s plans for vaccinating people who are 18 and above.

1. 63 existing MCGM/government vaccination centres will be available for the 45 years plus age category.
2. 227 new MCGM centres will be opened, one in each Municipal Corporator’s Ward for all citizens in 18 years plus age category.
3. Presently, 73 vaccination centres in private hospitals would be increased to 100 plus and they will cater to vaccination for all citizens in the age category of 18 plus.

Maharashtra Vaccination Status

In his address on the eve of Maharashtra statehood day, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that more than 1 crore 58 lakh citizens have been vaccinated in the state. “Our target is 8 lakh vaccinations per day”.

The state will require 12 crore does for vaccination of 5.71 crore citizens in the age group 18-44. He also appealed to the central government to make the registration app available to all the states separately so that there is no stress on the system.