Mumbai: Don’t see third wave of Covid-19 hitting city, BMC tells HC – Mint

Further, more than 82 lakh people have received their first anti-Covid jab since the vaccination drive began in the country. 

Appearing for BMC, Anil Sakhare also told the HC that 2,586 bed-ridden people have so far been administered both the doses of Covid-19 vaccine while 3,942 such people have got the first dose. 

“The work is on. It is going on smoothly. Now, there is no shortage of vaccines too. Mumbai is safe. We do not see a third wave (of the Covid-19) coming,” Sakhare said.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni was hearing a public interest litigation filed by advocates Dhruti Kapadia and Kunal Tiwari earlier this year, seeking a direction to both the Union and Maharashtra governments to start door-to-door vaccination for senior citizens aged 75 and above, specially-abled people and those who are bed-ridden. 

The plea said such people would not be in a position to step out of their houses to go to the vaccination centres and be inoculated. 

The Union government had earlier said it would not be able to start a door-to-door vaccination programme, but last month gave a go-ahead to it. 

The Maharashtra government in August said it would initiate the drive and had started door-to-door vaccination of bed-ridden people as a pilot project. 

On Monday, Kapadia told the HC that the purpose of filing the PIL was served as now even the Centre has framed a policy to vaccinate such people at their homes. 

The court then disposed of the PIL and said: “We are happy now that even these persons are not deprived of the Covid-19 vaccine.”  

Vaccinations in Mumbai 

The BMC had said last week that 29,51,157 Covid-19 vaccine doses, highest since the inoculation drive began, were administered in Mumbai in September.

The pace of vaccination in Mumbai is the highest among cities with population of more than ten lakh, it claimed.

The city presently has 464 vaccination centers — 325 run by the state or the civic body and 139 private ones.

In the beginning, there were only 12 centres, it noted. During the initial weeks, it had to suspend vaccination on some days because of a lack of doses but the “ability to speed up vaccination has been achieved by careful planning of both the storage capacity and the ability to administer the vaccine.”

With inputs from agencies.