40K HCWS get the shot in Maha, tally touches 261,319

MUMBAI: Maharashtra inoculated 40,732 healthcare workers (HCWS) across 539 vaccination centres on Friday. The state achieved 74% of its intended target to vaccinate 55,320 HCWS, data from the health department revealed. So far, the state has immunised 261,319 of around 800,000 HCWS.

Of the shots administered on Friday, 301 were Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, while the remaining were Serum Institute of India’s Covishield. The state has administered 2,613 Covaxin shots across six districts, including Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.

Meanwhile, Mumbai achieved 72% of its daily vaccination target on Friday, with 5,510 HCWS getting the shot across 12 centres. Four cases of adverse effect following immunisation were also reported, but none of the beneficiaries had to be admitted to a hospital, a statement from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) read. The total number of beneficiaries has reached 33,505 HCWS in Mumbai, BMC data said.

A senior health department official said the COWIN app usage is improving gradually. The official added that the vaccination teams are using the app for nearly 90% of the process, including intimating the HCWS.

Other parts of the state, such as Beed, Dhule, Satara, and Wardha districts witnessed more turnout than their daily target. While Beed reported 1,180 beneficaries against the target of 900, Satara district vaccinated 1,759 HCWS who walked-in to the centres as against their daily target of 1,600.

However, Parbhani, Jalgaon, Sangli and Yavatmal recorded immunisation below 50% of their target. While Parbhani had targeted to inoculate 600 people, only 191 (32%) HCWS turned up for the process. Jalgaon had a target of 1,300, but could immunise only 46% (602) of HCWS.

Another state official said the government has added many vaccination centres to boost the numbers.

“There will be some variation on a day-to-day basis. However, we are achieving our minimum daily target to inoculate 40,000 people [across the state],” the official said.

Meanwhile, 2,771 fresh Covid-19 cases were reported from across the state, taking the tally to 2,021,184. Of these, 43,147 are active cases. The state also added 56 Covid-19 deaths, pushing the death toll to 51,000. Of the 56 deaths reported, 36 occurred in the past 48 hours, while six were added from last week. The remaining 14 deaths are from the period before last week.

Mumbai reported 494 Covid-19 cases on Friday, taking the city’s tally to 308,063. The active cases in the city stood at 5,417.Mumbai’s toll reached 11,338 after eight more people died.

The number of fresh cases in January across the state has shown a decline, even as the deaths have decreased significantly between December and January. This month, the state has recorded 89,072 cases so far, which is a dip of 17.69% from December, when it recorded 108,216 cases. In January, till Friday, 1,479 fatalities were reported, which is a dip by 37.59% (2,370).

Meanwhile, Mumbai saw 46.72% increase in cases in January so far from December. However, the number of fatalities in Mumbai has seen a minor dip, from 232 in December to 222 this month.