On Monday, over one lakh citizens in Mumbai were vaccinated when 304 public centres opened their doors after a three-day gap. However, over twice or thrice of those inoculated were awaiting their turn outside the vaccination centres.
Owing to limited availability, certain centres on Monday kept only 100-200 slots open. Of these, 50% were reserved for appointments made online and the other 50% for walk-ins. These were then further divided into those available for the first and second jab, respectively. Some claim to have queued up since the wee hours of 4 in the morning and were still asked to come back some other day. Reports state that 1,06,904 managed to get jabbed in the city out of which 67,494 were at either state-managed or BMC-run centres.
Many have completed the time gap between both doses and are finding it arduous to get their hands on the second jab. On the other hand, some are battling to get an online appointment for their second dose. Many have lined up outside the vaccination centres for days before they can secure a vaccine.
Assistant Municipal Commissioner, Suresh Kakani has mentioned that the corporation has been told to vaccinate the citizens utilizing the 50:50 model, wherein, 50% are online appointments and the other 50% are walk-ins. He said that they cannot increase the slots available for the time being since vaccines are available in limited quantities. He added that people should not rush or wait if they don't have a token. Eventually, everyone will be vaccinated. He, however, recommends that citizens should try coming in with online appointments.
Earlier in May, the BMC was initially vaccinating through walk-ins for the first three days of the week and the next three days through online appointments. However, the Center told them that this was against the rules in place.
A new batch of 35,000 Covishield vaccines arrived on Monday. However, the state could vaccinate over 4.80 lakh people that day as opposed to their capacity of 8-10 lakh.
Share
Tweet
