With fresh vaccine stock expected by late Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday, the civic body plans to keep its centres shut for the first half of Friday until stock can be further distributed to all centres in the city. (Express)
With all BMC-operated centres remaining shut on Thursday due to shortage of vaccines, the city saw only 32,074 vaccinations on Thursday. The figure is almost half of 63,579 doses administered on Wednesday and marks a steep fall from Monday when 1.80 lakh inoculations took place. On Tuesday, 97,846 shots of Covid-19 vaccines were administered.
With fresh vaccine stock expected by late Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday, the civic body plans to keep its centres shut for the first half of Friday until stock can be further distributed to all centres in the city.
On Thursday, private hospitals carried out a bulk of vaccinations even as state-run centres conducted only 694 vaccinations. Civic centres recorded zero vaccination.
Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani said the corporation will receive 1.50 lakh doses, including 25,000 of Covaxin, in the fresh supply. The stock will last four to five days, he added.
Mumbai received over 7 lakh doses in June and 4.7 lakh does in May. For July, the civic body expects 10 lakh doses, although it has not received any assurance from the state government in the regard.
Dr Archana Patil, director of family welfare in the Directorate of Health Services, said on July 1, the state received 9 lakh Covishield and 3.5 lakh Covaxin doses, which will be distributed across all districts by Friday. For the entire month of June, Maharashtra received 59 lakh doses, of which 49.8 lakh shots were of Covishield and over 9 lakh were of Covaxin. While state government officials had expected close to 70 lakh doses, they said June stock was a little less than their expectation.
In the state capital, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to carry out vaccination in an aggressive manner, irrespective of how long the stock lasts. “If we go aggressive and increase daily immunisations, our supply will increase,” Kakani said.
The city saw a large turnout last week after scaling up its vaccination centres.
As many as 3.96 lakh shots were administered across 400 vaccination centres last week. This week, 3.73 vaccinations have been carried out until Thursday.
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