Ramping up the inoculation drive in Mumbai, the city’s civic body has taken over the task of straightening vaccination rolls for the next 10 days.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has 24 ward-level war rooms which were set up last year to smoothen Covid-related hospitalisation and data. This time, these war rooms will call up three lakh people who took their first shot in a vaccination centre in Mumbai but didn’t turn up for the second one.
“We got these three-lakh-plus names from the Cowin portal and plan to reach out to each one to find out why they haven’t taken the second shot despite it being overdue,” BMC additional commissioner Suresh Kakani told The Times of India (TOI).
A senior public health department doctor said the list has 3.84 lakh names. The initiative is a part of the civic body’s all-out plan to complete the ‘last mile’ of the Covid vaccination drive. So far, from 500 vaccination centres set across Mumbai- 1.47 crore shots (91.5 lakh first shots and 56.4 lakh second shots) have been given out.
Mumbai has an adult population of 92.3 lakh who are also eligible for shots against Covid-19. The TOI report stated that it is presumed that 99.1% of the city’s target population has taken the first shot, and 61% have taken the second dose.
Also Read: Close to Achieving 100% Single Vaccine Dose Feat, Mumbai Struggles to Track Refuseniks in Slums
Reportedly, the war room drill of calling beneficiaries could also provide an insight into whether 99.1% of first-shot beneficiaries were all from Mumbai or included ‘outsiders’ from municipal corporations.
However, the civic body public health officials have presumed that 10-20% of the 91.5 lakh who have taken the first shot in Mumbai could be from beyond city limits. “Many from Mumbai’s workforce live in satellite cities, so it is good if they have taken the vaccine here,” a doctor told TOI. The Union health ministry’s rules state people can take their shots anywhere in India.
Officials also pointed out that people could be resistant to take a second dose, on which, BMC additional commissioner said that we have to counsel them and get them to the nearest mobile vaccine centre for the second shot.
Kalina corporator Tulip Miranda told TOI that despite BMC going all-out by taking the vaccination van to many slum and housing localities, some are choosing to stay unvaccinated.
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