Inoculation of frontline workers from Monday: State

MUMBAI: After Centre’s directive, the Maharashtra government has decided to begin vaccination of frontline workers from February 1. Maharashtra has 580,000 frontline workers, including police, sanitation workers and revenue machinery enrolled themselves on centralised CoWIN app for vaccine shots till date.

On the other hand, the state government has instructed civic bodies in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) to take due care to restrict potential spurt in Covid-19 cases following opening up of the suburban trains for the general public from Monday. The municipal corporations in MMR will continue with their tracking and testing drive, to keep the spread under control, besides keeping the Covid Care Centres (CCCs) intact for the next few months.

After vaccinating 261,319 healthcare workers till Friday evening, the state machinery has announced to begin inoculation of frontline workers simultaneously from Monday. The district administrations have been directed to increase or shift the number of the vaccination centres, from 239 on Friday, as per the requirement. The state government has been assured by the Centre of an adequate supply of the vaccine doses.

“Healthcare workers and frontline workers will be simultaneously inoculated across the state from Monday. We have asked the district administrations to increase or shift the centres as per the requirements.

Large scale medical institutions with the Centres will have a greater number of booths. We have already started sending out the messages to the frontline workers. We’ve been communicated by the Centre that the vaccine will be supplied as per the requirement,” said Dr Archana Patil, director, state health services.

Meanwhile, the state reported 2630 more cases and 42 deaths of Covid-19 on Saturday taking the tally to 2,023,814 and toll to 51,042. Mumbai’s case tally touched 3,08492 and toll went up to 11345 after the city clocked 429 cases and 7 deaths on Saturday. The state has 44,199 active cases including 13,504 in Pune, 7677 in Thane and 5769 in Mumbai. State’s case fatality rate stands at 2.52% and the recovery rate at 95.23%.